


Rein It In

by DoveFanworks



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, I'm sure I'll finish this eventually, brotherhood era, centaur!Prompto, centaur!au, horse boi is fun to write, now with bonus art, rating for horse racism, sporadic uploads but like, the one where people from Niflheim are horse people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-05-16
Packaged: 2019-10-22 22:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17671250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoveFanworks/pseuds/DoveFanworks
Summary: None of them truly realized the intricacies of being friends with a centaur until Noct dragged one into his apartment.





	1. Hitching Rides

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so originally this entire AU was just gonna be a self-indulgent thing I would never post. Then I wrote over 20,000 words collectively for it... and my enabler friends said to post it so... here we are  
> I guess monster/fantasy creature AUs are just my brand now.  
> The Basic Idea™: Prom's a centaur, so is every person native to Niflheim, this often isn't great in a predominantly human occupied city currently at war with that country:^)  
> This was originally gonna be a 5 + 1 format story based on centaur!Prom giving rides to the people he cares about, and sure that's still gonna happen, but there's a bunch of bonus stories I also started writing and I kinda wanna shove them in here too. So consider it a very loosely structured fic that does have a plot just not a very concrete one. Mostly character exploratory I suppose.  
> Also this entire AU was inspired by one of my favourite artists and their centaur characters so check em out: http://hubedihubbe.tumblr.com/tagged/centuary
> 
> Also also, I will be hopefully posting the second installment for the Zu!AU very soon, just cause I'm writing another fantasy creature AU doesn't mean the big borb one is gonna end prematurely.

After the third barely concealed hiss in only two blocks, Prompto finally put his hoof down. So to speak, he wasn’t exactly brave enough to give orders to the actual Prince. But he was to his friend.

“Dude, you’re clearly sore, it’s really no trouble- “

“Prom, I’m fine,” Noctis grumbled, how stiffly he moved immediately proving otherwise. Prompto shifted a little more out of the way of the sidewalk, hooves making an uneven staccato against the pavement as he pressed himself as close to the building walls as he could. No easy feat when hauling an entire equine’s hindquarters from the waist down. 

“Yeah well, you’re not the one that has to listen to you mutter and curse under your breath,” Prompto said, following at a far slower pace than he would usually when Noctis stubbornly tried to continue on, “besides, you’re only walking cause I can’t ride in cars, it’s the least I could do bud.”

Noctis’ head turned to pin him with a glare that might have been effective if it weren’t pinched in obvious pain. He had to look a decent way up to meet his eye, but the height was made almost entirely by his long, slender legs. Even if he towered over most humans, he was relatively small and lithe by centaur standards. 

“Come on man, just to your apartment?” Prompto pushed, putting on his best pout, “I promise I won’t tell anyone if it embarrasses you.”

“It doesn’t embarrass me,” Noctis snapped, turning around to face him fully now. Luckily the streets weren’t too busy yet, the hour when most made the commute home from work not yet upon them, which was good. Trying to get home on foot was a hassle when you had to wade through a sea of human commuters unabashedly leveling dirty looks at you. Not that Prompto wasn’t used to them, and worse. A fact he had already sworn to never tell Noct.

“It doesn’t embarrass me,” Noctis repeated, eyes darting to the floor and a faint flush rising on his cheeks, “I just thought- it- I don’t want to be demeaning to you, you’re not just some steed to be ridden, you’re my friend.”

Prompto felt a matching blush lighting across his own cheeks and shoulders, his blonde tail giving a flustered swish. He giggled to pass the awkward atmosphere.

“Demeaning?” he said cheerfully, unable to stop the warmth that had filled his chest from touching his voice, “dude, I’m offering! It’s like a piggy back ride or whatever humans call it, trust me, it’s not demeaning. It’s like, rude to just jump on a centaur’s back without permission, but if it’s consenting then there’s no problem!”

He realized belatedly that he was rambling and cut himself off before he could go off on a tangent about how he could probably throw him off if he so pleased, immediately thankful for it because voicing that would have seen him slapping his own face at his idiocy. 

“Well,” Noctis said uncertainly, but easily more open to the idea than before, he worried his lip in thought but still would not look up to meet his eye.

“It’s your back giving you trouble right? Come on man, you don’t want Ignis to give you a lecture for straining yourself again do you?”

Noctis finally looked up to glare at him.

“Low blow,” he muttered. Prompto grinned.

“Yeah but you know I’m right, besides-” his grin widened, “-I’ve got two backs, so if your royal butt throws one out then at least I’ve always got the other.”

Against his grumpy expression, Noctis snorted, his lips curling up as a persistent smile forced its way through the sour look. Then he sighed, shifting on his feet and wincing as a twinge must have gone through his muscles.

“Fine, just this once.”

Prompto pumped his fist with a whoop, his forelegs leaving the ground in a happy little bounce. Apparently, he had been a very bouncy young colt, to the horror of his human foster parents, and some of that habit had stuck into his older years.

“Nice! Alright then all aboard bud!”

Noctis just stared up at him for a long moment.

“How exactly?” He said slowly, leaning to the side to glance at the intimidating distance between the ground and his back. Prompto lifted one of his forelegs, curling it to form a step.

“Just step up dude, I won’t let you fall,” he looked up thoughtfully, “would that technically be treason?”

Noctis snorted.

“No, it wouldn’t- “

“Actually, better safe than sorry,” Prompto said quickly, gesturing behind him to a small flight of concrete steps, “besides, since you’re sore using those’d be easier.”

“I’m not invalid,” Noctis hissed, but began walking the short distance to them.

“Course not,” Prompto agreed, trailing after him, “just don’t wanna cop a scolding from Ignis cause your clumsy ass couldn’t keep your balance.”

“I thought you said you wouldn’t let me fall?”

“If it’s the King’s will to fall on his ass, then I am but powerless to stop him,” Prompto said dramatically, laying the back of one hand on his forehead and leaning his upper body backwards in a swoon. Noctis halted long enough to elbow him in his lower half’s chest when he caught up, launching a laugh out of his throat.

“I’m not the King, alright how do I do this?” Noctis said, expression noticeably happier as he climbed to the third step, before turning to watch his centaur friend as he lined himself up as close as he could to his perch.

“Just swing yourself up,” Prompto replied unhelpfully, hands settled where his human half began to widen into his equine half, as one would on their hips, “you can hold on to the saddlebag straps, but uh, watch the bags themselves if you can please, they’re the only set I’ve got.”

“Right,” Noctis said, considering the problem before him a moment longer, before shuffling his bag on to his shoulders and leaning forward to grab a firm hold of the leather straps buckled across his back. 

“I can drop lower if you need- “

Noctis leapt up before he could finish the thought, swinging one leg up and over the curve of his spine and hauling himself up to be properly seated upon his back, right over the big, splotchy white patch that broke up his speckled, amber hide.

“Woah! Good job, du- hey you alright?”

When he looked over his shoulder, Noctis’ face was screwed up with barely repressed pain, his grip white-knuckled on the straps.

“Oh crap, dude, I’m so sorry I should have thought making you jump on would hurt, are you- “

“Prom, I’m fine, just aches.”

Prompto relaxed slightly at the reassurance, tail stopping its agitated flicking. A couple of passersby shot them some strange looks, but Prompto was more than used to ignoring them by now. He refused to move until the pain had passed, carefully watching his friend as his expression slowly relaxed back to normal, albeit still more strained and tired than his usual, bored look. He glanced about a little, curiosity brightening his eyes as he took in his new position.

“Huh, so this is how you see things? Not bad, Prompto, you’re taller than I realized.”

Prompto chuckled, shuffling his feet to subtly test how Noct’s weight rested and balanced on his back, pleased when he instinctively moved with the motion. At least he wouldn’t fall off immediately, that would be embarrassing, but he would keep the pace slow just in case.

“Ready to go?” Prompto asked when he was certain his friend was properly settled and wasn’t about to keel right off his back.

“Sure,” Noctis said, making a bad show of pretending to be disinterested, his eyes were practically alight with a childish giddiness at getting to hitch a ride. Prompto bit down on the snicker in his throat and instead began to move them forward, hooves clopping an even beat against the concrete as he leisurely continued their path down the street. He knew the way to Noct’s apartment by heart at this point, and without having to slow for his friend’s two human legs, they would get there in record time. Not that he was rushing or anything.

It felt a little odd, carrying someone on his back. He had only done it a couple of times before, for some of the kids in his neighborhood (before their mother’s had swiftly ushered them back inside with seething looks shot in his direction). This was different though.

Noctis was heavier than a kid or two, far from unbearable, in fact he was no hassle to carry at all, just noticeable. The warmth and weight on his spine wasn’t even unpleasant, just new and unfamiliar, but he couldn’t say he found it disagreeable. In fact it felt… nice. It was nice knowing he was helping his best friend out, nicer still that said friend was trusting him to carry him in such a way. 

“I’m not too heavy am I?” Noctis said, trying to go for a joking tone but failing to mask the concern beneath it. Prompto made a ‘pfft’ noise, stepping carefully around a bin that had been knocked over on to the sidewalk.

“Nah, I can barely notice you up there, you’re doing a good job staying balanced though.”

“Thanks,” Noctis replied, looking down to watch how his four legs moved beneath them, the order in which he moved them, then behind at how his hindquarters swayed with each step. Prompto tried not to think too much about the fact that he was effectively staring at his butt.

“It’s not as bumpy a ride as I thought it’d be,” Noctis observed, “I thought for sure I’d start slipping off by now but it’s really easy to stay balanced.”

Prompto smiled over his shoulder at him, flushing at the clear enjoyment in his voice.

“Let’s see you say that if I were actually moving fast, dude,” he said cheekily, “if I were going at a gallop you’d be in the dirt before I even got two steps.”

“How fast can you go?” Noctis asked, latching on to his now thoroughly spiked curiosity instead of the blatant teasing. Prompto huffed in amusement, but it was so nice to see his friend eager for something that he could hardly complain, and he didn’t mind answering questions. Especially for Noct.

“If I push myself, probably around fifty kilometers per hour.”

“Fifty?” Noctis echoed, eyes wide in disbelief, “damn dude, forget cars you could probably keep up with some of them.”

Prompto laughed at that, turning left on habit down the next street, keeping as out of the way of pedestrians as possible. 

“I can’t keep it up forever, man, cars don’t get tired, but I sure do.”

“Still, wish I could run fifty kilometers an hour.”

“All you gotta do is grow a horse butt and you too can run like the wind,” Prompto said, adopting the tone reminiscent of a car salesman and grinning when it earned him a bark of laughter.

“That’d be something,” Noctis said through a snicker, “I wouldn’t be able to function if I were a centaur, I still don’t even know how you move so well with four legs.”

“You’ll be shocked to know humans can move on four legs as well, bud, can you imagine that?”

Noctis lightly punched the back of his shoulder.

“Shut up, jerk, you know what I mean.”

“Anyway,” Prompto said through his laughter, “moving itself isn’t really the problem, it’s moving around other people that’s the issue, don’t wanna step on toes when you weigh as much as me, dude, trust me.”

“Ouch,” Noctis said with a wince, “yeah I don’t think that’d feel too good.”

Prompto took the next crossing over the road, relieved when they didn’t have to wait too long for the ‘walk’ signal to go off on the traffic lights, and took a side path to one of his most frequently used routes. It led to one of the canals that funneled river water through the city and out to the ocean, and the sides were lined with wide, decorative expanses of grassy parks and jogging tracks. He often used them on his morning runs not only for the scenery, but for the space. While joggers claimed the concrete paths, the long strips of soft grass were usually barren in the morning, giving him free reign to walk or run them as much as he wanted, and the openness allowed him to easily spot any others in his path well before they were too close for him to stop.

He could feel both his hearts already beginning to race with the urge to run, to feel the wind whipping through his hair, but he reined them in. He couldn’t just take off with Noctis on his back, that would just be rude, and would probably see him tumbling off his back in seconds as predicted. 

“We taking the long way?” Noctis said, sounding tired but happy as he swiveled about to take in the sights. 

“Oh, nah, sorry man I should have said,” Prompto stumbled over his words, trying to think of an easy way to say ‘this way has less people to glare at me for existing’, “it’s just less crowded this way, but we can go back if you- “

“Nah, it’s cool,” Noctis cut him off, looking pleased, “it’s nicer anyway, and it’s not like I’m in a rush to get back to Iggy’s lecture.”

“I get that,” Prompto agreed, picking up pace to a trot, keeping his gaze ahead to conceal his smile when Noctis released an excited breath, “Iggy’s a bit… intimidating.”

“He’s not so bad-“ Noctis shifted, trying to rise and fall with his gait, “-you two should try talking a bit more.”

“Uh, yeah man, I know we still don’t really know each other much but, um…”

“You don’t like Iggy?”

“What? No no dude, that’s not,” Prompto tried not to let his pace show his nerves, he knew he had an unfortunate habit of shuffling his hooves when he was anxious. How to say that it wasn’t that he disliked Ignis, it was more that he was pretty certain Ignis did not like him. 

“I just think, well, he gets nervous when you try and invite me over, dude, with good reason! I’m not exactly made for such a small apartment.”

“It’s my apartment, not Iggy’s, and I say you’re fine,” Noctis’ voice had a tinge of steel to its tone, and while it was flattering, Prompto couldn’t say it was a comfort.

“That’s sweet, Noct,” he said, refusing to look back at the stare he could feel on him, “but he’s right, you know, I’m too big for an apartment, it’s only a matter of time before I break something.”  
“Prom, I’d rather spend time with you than worry about a few broken knickknacks.” 

“You say that, but what if it’s something important? Or I actually do step on someone’s toes? Oh gods if I stood on Ignis I’m pretty sure he’d kill me.”

“Prompto! We both know you’re not that clumsy,” Noctis interrupted, lightly smacking his shoulder to stop him rambling, “you think I don’t notice how carefully you walk when you’re in public, if you were to step on someone they’d have to throw themselves under your hooves.”

Prompto chuckled despite himself.

“I have to be, when my butt’s this big.”

“Prom, I trust you, I know you’d never hurt someone deliberately.”

“Not deliberately sure,” Prompto murmured, barely remembering to keep striding across the grass, “but I still can, Noct, I can’t afford to let my guard down. I’m not-“

“Not what? Human?” Noctis demanded.

“Not like you,” Prompto finished feebly, hooves making sound against pavement for a few moments as he crossed a path that split the stretches of grass. Neither spoke for a while, and Prompto feared he had made things far too heavy, keeping his head down and watching his own forelegs beat against grass. He was usually so much better at keeping those thoughts stifled, only letting the suffocating isolation of being so completely different to most people in the city truly show when he was alone. Though it had been a long time since he had sobbed and begged to his adoptive, human mother to tell him why he had to be born so different. Still, sometimes things existed to remind him of it, in often brutal ways.

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I won’t try and force you to come inside anymore,” Noctis finally said, his voice even but somewhat strained beneath it, “but you know that I trust you, right Prom? I know you’d be fine hanging out in my apartment, and Ignis will too if you get to know each other better.”

Prompto chuckled weakly.

“I dunno bud, some people just… can’t get used to us, y’know? We are pretty different from humans.”

“Ignis isn’t most people,” Noctis said vehemently, “and besides, there’s just as many similarities.”

“I-I guess,” Prompto replied, forcing himself to slow again where his gait had steadily begun to pick up, dropping back down to a walk as he turned down a path to take them back to the busy city streets, “sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I was implying anything.” 

Noctis sighed.

“I know you didn’t-“ he was silent for a few moments, and Prompto could feel how tense he was upon his back, “-I’ve seen the way people look at you, Prom, I get it if you’re nervous.”

It was Prompto’s turn to tense, unable to hide how his spine went rigid and definitely not hiding it from the boy sitting on him. He released his breath in a huff, buying himself a bit more time by feigning intense focus on a gentle set of stairs, always a bit of an issue with four legs to keep track of. When that ran out though he decided to go with his usual escape: attempting to laugh it off.

“Pfft, how can they not look at a butt this good?”

Out of the corner of his eye he caught Noctis’ face screwing up as he attempted not to show his amusement, a startling failure. Prompto flicked his tail up so the long, pale tips gently flicked the back of the Prince’s neck, making him squawk and press his head to his chest to avoid the tickling. 

“Besides, looks never hurt anyone, it doesn’t bother me.”

“If you say so,” Noctis reluctantly dropped it, shimmying on his back and adjusting his grip on the saddlebag straps.

“You alright up there, cowboy?”

“Shut up,” Noctis groaned, giving his shoulder another shove, grumbling when he just laughed at him.

“I’m good, just my back again.”

“Guess the bouncing probably didn’t do it any good, huh?”

“Way better than walking,” Noctis’ gaze dropped to focus bashfully on the ground below again, “thank you, for the lift.”

“No problem man,” he replied cheerfully, dutifully ignoring the blush that dusted his cheeks, turning right at the end of the block and spotting the familiar sight of Noctis’ apartment building at the end, “it’s not like you’re heavy or anything.”

“It really doesn’t bother you at all, huh?”

“Nope! You’re not really that much different than if my saddlebags were just full of junk, which they usually are.”

Noctis snorted. 

“Great, maybe I can just tie mine to your back too in future.”

Prompto knew from his tone he was trying to pass it off as a joke, but he recognized the ever so quiet question beneath it, what, in a round about way, his friend was really asking.

“Dude, if you keep insisting on walking halfway home with me then it’d be quicker if you just hitched rides each day, I’m definitely gonna make you whenever your back’s acting up from now on.”

“What? Prompto no I’m not gonna let you- “

“Too late now bud! We’re running partners now, only I’m the one doing all the running around while you get to sit up there on your new throne, lucky you!”

Noctis couldn’t stop the snickers that forced their way past his lips, not for lack of trying, and he attempted to glare at him but failed that too when it was tempered with amusement.

“My new throne, huh? Hope you don’t plan on dethroning me one day then.”

“I would never,” he said, coming to a stop to wait for the light signal so they could cross to the apartments opposite, “besides, think of how happy Ignis and Gladio will be if you tell ‘em you’re running with me.”

“But I’m not really,” Noctis laughed, straightening his posture when the lights changed and he began forward once more.

“Well they don’t need to know that, do they?”

The two giggled like children as Prompto brought them round to the front entrance, coming up with gradually worsening scenarios of weird things they could tell them they were getting up to. They didn’t quite make it to the door before a familiar, posh voice broke their plotting.

“Noct? What in Shiva’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Prompto froze mid-step, one foreleg comically half raised as his head snapped around to find Ignis leant on the side of his dark, sleek car, his upper body straightening higher as though looking sharper might save him from the lecture to come. 

“What’s it look like Specs?”

Prompto wondered if it was treason to slap his best friend just once. Probably still yes.

“It looks like you’ve roped poor Prompto into serving as your chauffer, which he is not,” Ignis said slowly, all but stalking over to them, “I am.”

“I-I offered, actually,” Prompto said faintly, finally dropping his raised leg with a hollow ‘clop’.

“You offered?” Ignis said suspiciously, pinning him with that far too knowing gaze of his, “last I checked Noct could walk for himself.”

Prompto tried not to flinch.

Noctis was shooting a positively venomous look down at his retainer, which only filled Prompto with the urge to shuffle his forelegs at the charged atmosphere that had sprung from it. He resisted it, though he couldn’t stop his tail from flicking in discomfort.

“Uh, I’ll just, um, I’ll just drop down so you can get off,” Prompto said, keeping his movements slow and as smooth as possible as he bent his forelegs, then his back, folding both beneath him until he was lying on the hard pavement. 

“Prom- “

“Come on bud you gonna make me lie in the dirt all afternoon?”

Noctis shot another, weaker glare at Ignis, but obediently slid from his back, not quite hiding the wince as his legs took his own weight once more. A fact not missed by the ever-observant advisor either.  
“Noct? Are you hurt? Did you fall on the way? You- “

Prompto shot jerkily to his feet again, staggering to the side when he overbalanced. Noctis was furiously hissing something at Ignis but Prompto couldn’t hear it, both his hearts were roaring in his ears. Because he recognized the look Ignis shot him, the same wary look those mothers pinned him with while ushering their children away.

“I, uh, I gotta go bud,” he said, hoping his voice wasn’t shaking as much as he felt it was, “gotta get back in time for dinner, y’know how it is.”

Nevermind the fact that Noctis knew his parents weren’t even home right now.

“If you wouldn’t mind actually,” Ignis said, and his words might as well have been as sharp as a whip to Prompto, “I would like to speak with you before you- “

Noctis elbowed him hard, all but snarling at the man, before turning apologetic eyes back to his stammering friend. 

“It’s fine, Prom, I’ll catch you later.”

“Definitely.”

Ignis looked immensely displeased, far too intelligent eyes trailing from him down to Noctis and he already knew his friend was in for the lecturing of a lifetime. ‘So much for those future rides then’ he though miserably. Best to beat a hasty retreat though, there was no way he was brave enough to argue with Ignis. He somehow didn’t think the argument ‘please let the crown prince ride on my back where he could potentially have any number of painful falls’ wouldn’t go over well. Then again, his mere presence rarely seemed to anyway.

Prompto forced his mind to other things, trying hard to ignore the stares at his back as he forced himself to remain at a trot and not a full on gallop as his gut was urging, only relaxing when he turned the corner and was out of view of the pair. A tired breath left him, he hadn’t realized he had been holding it. His eyes itched. He ignored that too.

The afternoon traffic was beginning to pick up, commuters beginning to flood the sidewalks and he already knew the way home was going to be a slog. Better get started then.

Once again he pressed himself as close to the walls as he could, tried to make himself as small as possible. Once again he still didn’t really feel like he succeeded, and the trek was all the emptier for the itch in his back left from the warmth of where his friend had been.


	2. Rough Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I didn't expect people to actually like this AU:V  
> Alrighty then, I just so happen to have the second chapter finished as well though I imagine updates will get sporadic from here on out, as no other parts are fully written up and I don't know when I'll get back to them.  
> Fair warning, we diving right into some of the worse sides of centaur racism in this one:^)

“You intimidate him too much, could you at least try talking to him nicely?”

“I don’t deliberately try to,” Ignis said with a tired sigh, not turning from where he diced vegetables at the kitchen bench, “but I stand by what I said, I do believe you two could be more careful. Prompto is sure-footed, but he is still… large, compared to us.”

“He’s not some dumb animal, Ignis!” Noctis hissed, rage filling his eyes.

“I did not mean to imply that,” Ignis said calmly, “I merely mean that accidents can happen, and there are certain things you both do that invite them.”

“Ignis, I swear to gods if you- “

They were interrupted by a firm knock on the door, and both turned to glance at the entryway. Noctis shot a final, warning glare at the advisor, before sliding off the bar chair he was perched on and padding to the door of his apartment.

Ignis sighed, returning focus to the knife and cutting board. He did not enjoy having to say such things so often to the young Prince, yet he also couldn’t shake the worry of the rather unexpected friendship that had cropped up between human and centaur. He supposed he shouldn’t have expected Noctis of all people to go out and make a conventional friend, indeed for a time they had all feared he would not make any at all. Then he had brought a centaur home.

To be completely fair, Ignis found nothing personally wrong with Prompto at all. He had passed every check they had put him through, all the scrutiny involved with being close to the Prince digging up absolutely nothing questionable. And besides all of that, Prompto really was just a bright, kind soul. No, it was not the boy himself, but no matter how hard he tried he could not curb the instinctive flare of anxiety whenever he saw Noctis beside the immense, powerful body of the young centaur. How hard hooves tore up dirt and grass with ease, the long legs and muscle-hard body that allowed him to cover distance at speeds two human legs could only dream of. 

He had glimpsed Prompto run, truly run, only once, keeping up with his own car with startling ease after picking Noctis up from school. Said boy had hung out the window spurring him on, but Prompto had only followed until the end of the park that ran by the schoolyard, slowing before halting completely where grass turned to concrete and busier paths. Instead of waving them off, his forelegs had left the ground, his entire body rearing up to easily double his height to the loud delight of Noctis, before slamming back down to the dirt.

Impressive and terrifying to him all at once. The mere notion of those pounding hooves coming down upon…

“What happened to your legs?!”

The sharp concern in his voice had Ignis immediately dropping the onion he had been dicing alongside the knife, hurriedly wiping his hands on his apron and striding to the entry hallway. Prompto was halfway through the doorway, having to duck his upper body down to fit through, looking bashfully down at Noctis, who was crouched down staring at the hooves of his forelegs.

“Noct, what are you doing down there?”

“Specs,” Noctis barked by way of explanation, “come look at this, now!”

“It’s really nothing,” Prompto said quickly, but seemingly did not dare move for fear of accidentally hitting Noctis. Ignis swept wordlessly beside the Prince, stooping himself to see what had him so up in arms. Then immediately dropped to crouch beside him, hands coming up to physically assess what he was seeing.

Bloody, open gashes marred the slender limbs, focused heavily just above his hooves but scattered higher, staining his white socks with dark, crusted blood and the light pink stains that denoted where it had trailed.

“What on Eos happened?” He muttered severely, gentling his touch when Prompto flinched under his hands.

“Oh, you know,” he said, chuckling weakly, “wasn’t paying attention and walked straight into this thorny bush.”

Ignis knew from the depth of the gashes that there was no way it was the thorns of even the most vicious of plants, the hide of Prompto’s lower half was far too tough for that. And it didn’t explain why they grew more scattered as they progressed up his legs. Something cold and slimy began to slither in his gut.

“You should see the bush,” Prompto said jokingly, the crooked grin he wore a painted-on façade of his usual, blinding one.

“A bush did that?” Noctis echoed bluntly, arms crossing over his chest.

“A bush did not do this,” Ignis cut Prompto off before he could even open his mouth to deny it, glancing over his shoulder at the now pacing Prince, “go get the first-aid kit from the bathroom, Prompto, come into the kitchen, do you think you can prop your leg up on a chair?”

Prompto looked like he wanted nothing more than to bolt.

“I, it’s really no big deal, Ignis, it’s just a couple of scrapes.”

“No big deal?” Noctis said in disbelief, “Prom, you’re bleeding, some of those look deep.”

“First-aid kit, please.”

“Right,” Noctis grunted, disappearing deeper into the apartment to fetch it. 

Ignis stood, gesturing wordlessly for Prompto to follow. For a moment he feared he wouldn’t, but then there was a hesitant step, the sound of the centaur’s hooves on tile almost too loud in the sudden silence of the room. A fact Prompto seemed all too aware of, but couldn’t help no matter how hard he tried. He caught him out the corner of his eye using one of his rear legs to gently push the front door closed behind him. Good.

Prompto followed him slowly into the main room, and Ignis noted he was very carefully giving him plenty of space, his blonde head swiveling about at every step, making sure he was well away from anything breakable. His arms were wrapped around his stomach, as though he expected to be struck there.

“Here,” Ignis said gently, pulling out one of the dining table chairs and pushing down the twisting feeling in his middle, “can you put your foreleg up here?”

Prompto blinked, looking at the open chair in muted terror.

“I’ll scratch it up if I do that,” he said, one of his back legs lifting uncertainly, “trust me, this really isn’t worth all the fuss, I’m honestly fine.”

“Your legs are covered in open wounds, I just want to clean and bandage them, the chair is of no concern,” Ignis answered, more than a little confused as to why he was being so stubborn about it. He had bloodied scratches across his legs for Astrals sake, some of them awfully deep, it was just common knowledge to disinfect such injuries. The fact that Prompto seemed more worried about a simple chair than himself said far more than he wanted to know, and yet when he thought back on it, he realized with a horrible lurch that he had never given reason for Prompto to think he valued him over something as stupid as material items. Had he not just been warning Noctis how much damage a careless centaur could cause?

That slimy feeling inside him finally started adding up, though he knew his own short-comings were not the only thing weighing on his mind. But he could not confirm anything on the other just yet.  
Prompto complied hesitantly, lifting his right leg achingly slowly and resting it as delicately as possible on the seat. Ignis tried not to make it obvious that he noticed the wary looks Prompto kept throwing him as he knelt opposite him, entirely too skittish at what he might say for his liking. Had he really come off that cold?

“Prompto, how did you really get the scars?” Noctis’ return heralded the return of the tense silence and Ignis had to fight off the urge to bury his head in his hands. The future King had, sadly, not yet learned the value of tact.

Noctis marched through the awkwardness with all the regality a Prince practically shaking with righteous rage could muster to set the first-aid kit on the floor beside him. Ignis supposed jumping right into the issue was better than letting it fester, and speaking of he busied himself by popping the latches on the box, pulling out bandages, gauze swabs and the bottles of antiseptic. He wanted a real answer as well, because there was no way wounds this deep came from the thorns of a bush. When he looked closer at the dark, slightly dusty hoof planted on the wood, he noticed scratches marred the otherwise smooth surface in some places as well.

Prompto tried to laugh, but it was even weaker than before.

“I told you, it was- “

“Prompto,” Ignis said as gently as possible, not wanting to use his apparently very intimidating presence against him but needing to know exactly what he was dealing with. And beyond that, wanting to know if the gross feeling slithering in his gut was the hunch he suspected it to be. Even as he hoped against hope it was not.

Prompto was silent for a long moment, his eyes glassy and staring away from them both. Ignis busied himself wetting one of the swabs with the antiseptic liquid, murmuring a warning for the stinging, before beginning to carefully apply it to one of the deeper cuts. Prompto hissed when it touched him, forcing his leg still where it had tensed enough to pull the chair an inch across the floor with a squeak. 

Ignis shot a glance at Noctis out the corner of his eye when the Prince’s mouth moved to open. Demanding answers would get them nothing but an even more anxious Prompto, they had to let him speak for himself. Noctis wisely shut his mouth, watching his hands as he dabbed at the cuts with an ever-souring expression, mood only growing darker as each new swab turned pink with his friend’s blood.  
“I was walking along the canals,” Prompto finally said softly. Noctis immediately looked up to meet his gaze but Prompto’s eyes were resolutely turned away, refusing to even risk a glance at them. Ignis kept quiet, not faltering in his task, silently urging him to continue. 

“I usually take them, there’s less people, more space, so I don’t get in trouble for being in the way so much.”

Noctis tensed and Ignis shot him another warning look, even as similar thoughts were weighing on his own mind.

“It’s, uh, it’s usually pretty safe, mostly joggers and stuff, I mean, most people recognize me round there anyway… but there were these strange guys hanging around today, young, couldn’t have been much older than me and Noct, I think they might have been a bit drunk actually.”

Ignis knew he was rambling, but he didn’t press it, and miraculously neither did Noctis, who apparently seemed to have finally got the message. But his shoulders had gone tense, and Ignis already loathed where this story was heading.

“It was still pretty early for most of the people that use those paths, most come out at sunset, y’know? So like, there wasn’t many people around, ‘cept for me and that group of guys.”  
Ignis stretched upward to get some of the gashes further up the slim leg, the short, amber-gold fur velvety soft where his fingers brushed it and wonderfully warm. 

“One of them had this big long chain.”

Noctis didn’t move, he didn’t even flinch, he just stared up at his friend who still could not meet his eyes. Ignis chanced a glance upward and thought he might have glimpsed a watery sparkle in the blonde’s eye, but it was quickly hidden by the tilt of his head and the awkward angle so that he couldn’t be certain.

“And I guess… I guess they thought it’d be a fun game to see if I could keep jumping over it-“ Prompto broke with a chuckle that sounded more strangled than anything else, “- needless to say I couldn’t.”  
Noctis looked like he wanted to murder someone, and Ignis couldn’t even well up the will to scold him for the display. He felt he might just like to do that too. 

“That wasn’t a fucking game,” he bit out, and once more Ignis couldn’t bring himself to even call out his language. He seethed at the sheer vileness of the story as well, forcing his hands to open the roll of bandage and begin tightly encasing the worst of the wounds, now taking form in his eyes as the strikes of metal chain links, swung so hard they had ripped through flesh.

Prompto didn’t speak for what felt like an hour, but couldn’t truly have been more than half a minute at most. None of them did. Noctis glowered. Ignis worked. Prompto trembled. When he did answer, his voice was so weak as to be barely heard.

“It was to them.”

Ignis finished the first leg in silence, wrapping the bandages tight and securing them with the elastic pins. He gestured gently for the other, and Prompto wordlessly swapped legs, the next shaking as it rose. 

He repeated the process, cleaning the wounds as carefully as possible, running his thumb comfortingly over the soft fur of his ankle when he hissed at the sting. He was quicker with the second, but he didn’t miss the chance to discretely glance at his rear legs. They bore a few gashes of their own, but nowhere near as many as his forelegs and not deep enough to warrant much worry. Though he would see about cleaning those with some antiseptic as well before the evening was over.

“Did you call the authorities?” Noctis said finally, and Ignis was rather proud he was trying so hard to clamp down on his fury, for his shaken friend’s sake.

Prompto gave a bitter laugh, the sound so startlingly wrong coming from the normally so happy young man.

“Nah, there’s no point.”

“You were assaulted, Prompto,” Ignis pointed out.

“Most of the time they won’t come for a centaur,” he said bluntly, voice so flat, so dead, it was almost alien, “even if they do, at best those guys would have gotten a warning.”

“I’m sure if you explained the situation they would have seen that- “

“You think I haven’t tried before?” Prompto hissed, his upper body curling as his shoulders caved in, hands gripping his own arms so hard his jacket scrunched beneath them, “they don’t- they don’t care, not when it’s a centaur, easier to just ignore it.”

“That’s not right, Prom,” Noctis seethed, “you should have said- “

Prompto wrenched his foot away as soon as Ignis had finished securing the bandage, careful not the hit him but fast enough to make him jump.

“I-I gotta go,” Prompto stammered, all but tripping over his own hooves to turn and head for the door, he stopped after barely taking a step, fiddling with the leather cuff around his wrist, “I want to get home before it gets dark.”

“You can stay here,” Noctis said immediately, shooting back to his feet, “it’s not- “

“We will not force you to stay, if you don’t want to,” Ignis interrupted, quietly hoping it didn’t sound like he wanted him to leave, he didn’t, far from it in fact, but forcing the already shaken boy into such a position wouldn’t help either. Noctis was pinning him with such a potent glare it was a wonder his shirt hadn’t caught aflame.

“But,” he added, pleased when Prompto’s head turned to look at him, though the wariness in his eyes he could have done without, “we would be very happy to have you, if you’d like to stay, and perhaps tomorrow we could walk with you back to your home?”

Prompto worried his lip, hovering uncertainly by the entryway, and Ignis was blindsided by just how terrified he looked. Every muscle in his body was taught, like he was one loud noise away from making a break for it. Ignis couldn’t help wondering if it was fear of another assault out on the streets, or anxiety over his own, decidedly cold treatment in the past. 

There was no denying it now, Ignis had set this potential relationship off to a rough start. And after seeing the injuries Prompto had dragged in with him, and how unsurprised he seemed to be about the entire, awful situation, he now had a sickening understanding of why the blonde was so skittish around him.

But surely he didn’t think he would hurt him, did he? If it was true, and he did, he would do everything in his power to reverse the damage he had inadvertently done. Spending some time in close quarters and getting to know each other would be a good start. 

Ignis silently willed him to agree to stay.

“I-I don’t want to be a bother,” Prompto said weakly, “you’ve already patched me up, I can’t ask for more, and besides, I’m way too big to stay a whole night.”

Ignis could sense Prompto’s wariness of staying the night in a small, breakable apartment, and likely of himself, was at war with his clear hesitance to go back out into the streets he had been attacked on.

“You’re no bother at all,” Ignis said gently, taking a slow step towards him, “and I’m sorry if I made you believe that you were.”

Prompto’s gaze finally snapped up to meet his, blatantly shocked at the apology, which did nothing to settle the nausea that had risen in his gut. The centaur’s long, creamy tail flicked in agitation.

“You didn’t- “ he began, but cut himself off, looking back down to the floor.

“You did,” Noctis said, unhelpfully. But honestly. 

“I get it, y’know?” Prompto said suddenly, and his arms had risen to wrap around his midsection once more, like he was fending off a chill, “I’m big, I’m clumsy, and I know you know I could crack a person’s skull open with a well-placed kick.”

Ignis wasn’t the only one shocked into silence by the sudden admission, Noctis had gone rigid beside him. A bitter smile curled the blonde’s lips up and once again he couldn’t seem to make eye contact with either of them.

“Your entire job is to keep Noct safe, I get it, a centaur isn’t exactly the safest friend to have, not to mention the whole situation with Niflheim, it’s probably not great for the Prince to be seen so close to one of us- “

“Alright, Prom, stop,” Noctis demanded, so sharply it could almost be considered a royal decree.

“Why? It’s true.”

“It is not true,” Ignis stepped in, carefully reaching out to lay a hand on the shoulder of Prompto’s hindquarters, giving him plenty of opportunity to move away if he wanted to. He didn’t. The lean muscle shivered under his touch.

“The only truth you said is that it is my job to keep Noct safe- “

“And you’re big,” Noctis added.

“-but I am also his friend, and it was wrong of me to make so many assumptions about you because of what you are. I can at least promise you that my poor decisions were never because centaurs originate from Niflheim.”

The look Prompto gave him as he slowly, hesitantly raised his gaze to meet his was so tired, so utterly and completely drained, Ignis had to wonder how often he had heard conversations on this topic, and how many of them had gone far worse than this. But he also knew it wasn’t a physical kind of exhaustion, this kind was all of the emotional sort.

“I worry very much for Noct’s wellbeing, it’s true,” Ignis continued, before he could dwell too much on it, “I believe the term he likes to use is ‘mother-henning’.”

Ignis was pleased when that drew a very small chuckle out of the blonde.

“But it doesn’t excuse the fact that I made very wrong assumptions of you, even more so that I deemed you a danger to him for it, I only now realise how bad I allowed it to get. And I am truly sorry.”  
Prompto looked like he wanted to burst into tears but settled for a breathless laugh.

“I can’t remember the last time someone actually apologized for stuff like this,” he mumbled, tapping one of his hooves lightly against the floor, “actually, I don’t think anyone’s apologized to me ever.”

Ignis felt his jaw tighten. He didn’t turn to look, but he could all but feel Noctis shaking beside him, like he was two seconds away from latching on to his friend and outright refusing to let go.  
“Thanks, Ignis, it means a lot.”

“So, you’ll stay the night then?” Noctis broke in, looking hopeful. Prompto looked away, worrying his lip.

“I- “

“I do believe Noct can part with some of his hoard of pillows for one night,” Ignis added, adjusting his glasses across his nose, “though I’m afraid I don’t know much about centaur bedding preferences, so I’d leave that to you two.”

“Some of us can sleep standing up,” Prompto blurted, flushing as soon as the words left his mouth and looking startled at his own suddenness. Ignis couldn’t help being a little impressed by that, he was realizing quite blatantly that he had never really bothered to research much about Prompto’s species and was already mentally making notes to check out some books and do some online reading. He also couldn’t deny a certain curiosity growing inside him.

“Wait, really?” Noctis said, blinking in disbelief. Prompto nodded, and Ignis was pleased to see it was a bit less shaky, his hooves no longer shifting in readiness to bolt for the door.

“Yeah, I mean, I can’t, I just kinda flop down wherever with a pillow and I’m pretty happy, but I know a guy who does.”

“Flop down wherever, huh?” Noctis echoed slyly, “great, then we can set up a bed for you in the living room. I’m guessing the couch wouldn’t really work.”

“W-what? Noct, seriously you don’t have to do this, I can still- “

“If it helps,” Ignis said, adjusting his glasses with a small smile, knowing they were close to breaking the stubborn centaur, “I was planning on trying a new recipe I’d learned for dinner tonight, I would be very grateful for another taste tester.”

It was a little manipulative, he knew, but he felt it was for a good reason. 

“I mean,” Prompto mumbled, glancing one last time at the door, “I guess I can stay… for that at least, I’d have to be stupid to miss your cooking, Ignis.”

“I think that would be wonderful,” Ignis said softly, “Noct, please ensure Prompto is comfortably settled, I’m going to get dinner cooking and then I would like to check those smaller scratches on your back legs if that is alright?”

Prompto startled once more at that, halfway through taking a slow step back into the main room, his slightly reddened eyes tracking Noctis as he darted into his room, presumably to begin dragging out the multitudes of pillows he liked to bury himself in. 

“Uh, y-yeah, ok.”

Two more hesitant steps in he stopped again.

“Um, where do you want me?”

“Sofa,” Noctis ordered, emerging from the door to his room with an almost mountainous number of pillows piled in his arms, and heading for the living room TV.

“Dude, I’ll break your sofa,” Prompto said faintly, tail swishing in agitation.

“Not on it,” Noctis said, dumping the pillows on to the floor before leaning down and shoving the coffee table away from him, making more space in front of the two couches.

“Wouldn’t it, uh, wouldn’t it make more sense to put them out of the way of the couches?” Prompto said, stepping around to stand to the side of the sofas, watching as Noctis pulled every throw blanket from the backs of them and tossed them to the floor as well. 

“Nope,” Noctis said, “don’t worry, I have a plan.”

“Fear,” Prompto replied on instinct. 

Ignis finally allowed himself to return to his cutting board, smiling softly as he both heard and saw Prompto visibly relaxing, confident that Noctis would give his all to make his friend comfortable again. He had complete faith in him. When it came to Prompto, Noctis wouldn’t fail.

“Ok can you lie down here? If you want to stretch out we can push the other sofa back a bit more-“

“Uh, no, I don’t really stretch out that much, but won’t I be in the way there, bud?”

Ignis glanced over his shoulder. From his limited perspective, it looked as though Noctis had spread out the pillows and blankets on the floor in front of the couch that was facing the tv upon the wall. Ah, yes he saw Prompto’s issue. If he settled down there he would be lain in front of the main couch Noctis used, and would even be blocking the other somewhat if his expectations were correct and he used it to lean his upper body on. 

“Just trust me,” Noctis said. Prompto sighed, shuffling his forelegs again.

“Alright,” he said, slowly moving between the couch and the pushed away coffee table, strides careful as he stepped on the uneven pillows and blankets, “if you’re sure.”

Noctis scurried aside, rounding the coffee table as his friend delicately lowered himself to his knees, his back legs folding after them, until he disappeared completely from view behind the back of the couch. He caught a glimpse of Prompto’s blonde hair around the left corner, as he had suspected, leaning his crossed arms on the seat of the other sofa.

“I’m in the way,” Prompto murmured, so soft he was barely able to catch it. 

“No, you’re not,” Noctis answered gently. Ignis watched them in the sunset-lit reflection of the floor to ceiling windows. Noctis strode up to the centaur’s side and, with all the boldness his royal status granted, reclined himself over the back of his friend and leaned into him so they were pressed back to back, at least in terms of human anatomy. 

Silence dominated the apartment for a long couple of moments and Ignis was just about to roll up his sleeves and scold the Prince when-

“Horse couch,” Noctis said simply. Ignis could feel the distinct pulse of a headache developing directly behind his eyes. Prompto burst into laughter.

“I-if you say so, buddy,” Prompto said through his giggles, trying not to move and jostle the Prince perched on him right off, “your butt’s gonna fall asleep.”

“And your back is damn bony,” Noctis grumbled back.

“Which one?”

A sharp bark of laughter left Ignis’ throat before he had even realized it. He cleared his throat quickly in the silence that followed, risking a glance back to check the reflection in the window again. Prompto had frozen, eyes wide in shock. Noctis just looked lazily pleased.

“Nice, you made Specs laugh.”

Then Prompto beamed, that familiar, blinding grin that had felt so wrong not upon his face, and Ignis couldn’t help smiling too. He allowed the last stray chuckles to fall from his lips, catching the blonde shoving a pillow down against his back and into the Prince’s face.

“Here, so you don’t hurt your precious, royal head on my bony back.”

That launched a small wrestling match that was shockingly even, considering Prompto clearly wasn’t about to throw his weight around indoors, and instead ended up looking more like a slap fight between the two. Peace descended for a time once they settled, Noctis booting up a game and playing from his sprawl across his centaur friend’s back, clearly not planning on moving anytime soon. Prompto seemed content to watch, idly throwing in comments or some friendly ribbing every now and then, but from his voice alone Ignis could tell he was thoroughly exhausted. But finally relaxed.  
Ignis quickly finished up with the last of the dicing, tossing the onions into a pan to begin cooking and tending to the cut of meat as he did. He had scarcely removed the steaks from the butcher’s paper they were wrapped in before he hit a sudden quandary. After a moment, he turned to face the couches again, locking his eyes on the mop of rampant blonde hair resting on crossed arms.

“Prompto?” Ignis called, pleased when the centaur’s head instantly jolted up, but his gaze registered as more alert than fearful, “forgive me if this sounds rather foolish, but… can you eat meat?”

He only just caught the sound of Noctis snorting as Prompto blinked at him in bemusement, before lurching into a hurried answer.

“O-oh! Yeah, yeah of course, uh, we can pretty much eat all the same stuff as humans really.”

“Huh,” Ignis said with interest, in hindsight he wondered how he had gone this long without reading up on centaur anatomy and lifestyles, but he now found himself developing a keen curiosity for it, “I wouldn’t have expected that, considering the predominantly herbivorous anatomy.”

“Yeah, it’s uh, not all exactly the same, as an animal I mean,” Prompto supplied, and Ignis turned almost all of his attention to him, keeping half an eye on the sizzling vegetables, “we can handle meat and stuff no problem, in fact, we probably need to have steel stomachs, half the traditional foods most of the centaurs I know make are spicy as hell.”

“Is that so? So you have a taste for spicy things then?”

“Uh- “

“Yes,” Noctis answered for him, not looking away from the tv. Prompto gave him a shove.

“Hmm, I’ll keep that in mind,” Ignis said, “Noct can barely handle anything with spice, I have more than a couple of recipes I can test on you.”

Prompto flushed and ducked his head into his arms, his ears rapidly reddening but Ignis could see the corner of his lip curled up in a bashful smile. Noct elbowed his friend back.

“That’s good, finally you can get all those recipes out of your system.”

“That reminds me,” Ignis said suddenly, “Prompto, you said you would be a fool to miss my cooking, thank you by the way, but I don’t believe I have ever cooked for you before.”

“Oh, uh, no,” Prompto stammered, finally lifting his head from his arms and clearly not noticing at all how Noctis tensed, “Noct has shared some of his lunches with me, um, I hope that’s alright?”

“Perfectly,” Ignis replied, silently enjoying how Noctis refused to meet his gaze in the window. 

“At the very least I now know where all his vegetables are going.”


	3. Art: 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so I remembered I doodled this a while ago and it's sat in my files doing nothing so I figured while I'm dropping all my finished chapters in here might as well drop this in too. So uh, this whole fic has a very loose structure to begin with but occasionally the chapter updates might just be art in disguise:^)

They're off to school and definitely not the arcade.

This doodle is super messy but at the very least you all get to see how I visualize centaur!Prom;0; He's based off an amber coated horse with blanket appaloosa: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/68/16/52/68165285b8fe051a60abe32516de3514.jpg  
Or... he has a splotchy butt. And only 3 white socks cause he forgot his last one;v;


	4. Art: 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think this was a new chapter? You were BAMBOOZLED

All the wonderful comments on this fic inspired me to doodle, seriously I have been utterly blindsided by the reception to this fic and if you want more updates soon, then the best way is to encourage me with comments. I read and respond to every single on of them where I am able <3 The first pic was just exploring centaur!Prom's colours and markings a bit more than that first super messy doodle, and the second... came to me in a fever dream and refused to leave until I drew it.

I'm finally getting better at drawing horses too!

Made Prom even speckly-er

_Oh the weather outside is frightful_

I MEANT TO PUT CHOCOBOS ON HIS BUTT BLANKET BUT I FORGOT


	5. The Pony Express

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Ignis's turn hitching a ride on the Pony Express™  
> This chapter... turned out fucking immense, just under 9000 words. Now I'm feeling it lads. Just hope I didn't shove too much stuff in here, I tried to include more building on the whole social stigma with centaurs, build more on Prom and Ignis's relationship AND include some humour and outer worldbuilding. Definitely looking for some constructive criticism on this one guys! So hit me with your best shot I wanna get better!!!  
> Also! I officially have a tumblr blog to stow all my fan content plus things that inspire me: https://dovefanworks.tumblr.com/  
> I might also take doodle requests for this AU over there at some point so keep an eye:V

It wasn’t very often Ignis found himself utterly at a loss, he was usually too organized to be surprised by much. But after the morning he had had, he was definitely beginning to wonder what he had done to warrant such scorn from the Astrals.

That was truly the only explanation he could conjure for the string of mishaps that had befallen him since he had woken to find his phone hadn’t charged properly all night. The device must have shut itself down while he had been asleep, and subsequently not one of his multiple alarms had gone off.

He hadn’t even overslept that much in all honesty, his internal clock far too exact, only waking him around ten minutes late, but it was enough to throw everything else in his roster into chaos from that moment on.

He had rushed through his morning schedule, reaching the ground floor only to shamefully find he had left behind an important report and raced right back up to his apartment to pick it up. By the time he actually managed to reach his car he was truly beginning to believe something decidedly godly was at play. But, he thought with relief, he still had more than enough time to make it to his first university class for that day, even accounting for traffic, and then at last he would be back on track.

Which, of course, was when his car refused to start. 

He almost longed for Noct’s ability to turn right around and go back to bed. Almost. When the fifth try still yielded no signs of life from the engine, he resigned himself to finding an alternate form of transport, and likely being late for his class.

Dutifully ignoring the twisting feeling in the pit of his chest at that (he did have a rather immaculate reputation to uphold after all), he hurriedly gathered up his leather satchel, phone and now useless car keys. He swiftly keyed in a search for the nearest taxi station as he strode from the carpark and on to the main street, comparing the estimated times with a straight shot by foot, and not liking what he came back with either way. Traffic was soon to hit its busiest time, and when factoring in how long he had to wait for his ride to arrive, it wasn’t doing anything to quell his nerves. It probably didn’t help that he had only taken a taxi or even public transport a couple of times in his life. Growing up predominantly within the walls of the Citadel had certainly spoiled him.

Now, he hated to admit it, he was at a bit of a loss, caught on whether it would be faster to call a taxi or to head for the nearest bus station. The time he was taking continued to gleefully eat at the back of his mind, steadily winding his spine tighter and tighter like a child with a spring-loaded toy.

“Ignis?”

Ignis would later adamantly refuse to admit he had jumped, just a little, at the familiar, peppy voice.

“Hello, Prompto,” Ignis called, turning to find the still rather impressive sight of the young centaur, trotting towards him from along the street, a friendly smile pulled across his freckled face. The worn, leather saddle bags he rarely saw him without bounced with his gait, the many buckles and zips jingling merrily in the cool morning air. Prompto came to a stop at his side, his silky, blonde tail flicking curiously, Ignis craning his neck to hold his gaze and marveling not for the first time at the height his lean, muscled lower half gave him.

“Good morning! You off to take care of Noct?”

Ignis chuckled at the wording, noting there was nothing but fondness in the younger man’s voice.

“Not until this afternoon, though I dare say he will be kept quite busy with all the meetings he has on his schedule this morning.”

Prompto made a face at that, fidgeting with the bottom of the brown and blue sweater he was wearing. It wasn’t exactly cold out, not yet, but the autumn mornings were definitely beginning to have a bite to them.

“Oof, he’ll be mopey about that when you see him then.”

Ignis grumbled at the truth of that, but he was well versed in dealing with the moody Prince by now, pulling a snicker from the blonde, before he remembered his rather time-sensitive situation.

“Well, I’m afraid I cannot chat for long,” Ignis said, glancing almost feverishly between his phone and the centaur, “I would be off to my classes by now had my blasted car not given up on me, I’m currently trying to decide on the fastest route there.”

“On a Saturday?”

“I take extra group classes in order to account for my absences when serving the Prince.”

Prompto hissed in sympathy, shuffling his forelegs awkwardly.

“Damn, that sucks dude, which uni are you at? I might know what buses go that way?”

“I would appreciate that actually,” Ignis replied, finally lowering his phone and shooting him a small smile, “I attend at Northbank Lucis Academy.”

Prompto looked thoughtful for a long moment, his hands rising to fiddle in the air, gesturing with his fingers back and forth, almost as though he were counting something. Then his eyes refocused and a wide, crooked grin split his face.

“Oh! I know where that is! Down on fourth by the second north district canal, that’s not that far, I can give you a lift if you’d like?”

Ignis blinked, mentally stalling at the perfect string of address lines, before the second half of what he had said caught him up and made his reply lodge in his throat.

“Oh… Oh! Er, while I certainly do appreciate the offer, I couldn’t possibly ask such a thing of you, I’m sure it wouldn’t be appropriate or-”

“Iggy, it’s honestly no trouble at all,” Prompto said quickly, raising his hands placatingly, “really, it’s not like you’d be heavy to me, and I’m heading towards that part of the city anyway.”

Ignis narrowed his eyes behind his glasses.

“No, no honest! I gotta see a guy about a custom coat before winter rolls in, unless I wanna freeze my hooves off. I wouldn’t be going out of my way at all.”

Ignis watched him carefully for a long moment, glancing back down to his phone screen, still open to the bus timetable and worrying his lip. He had no idea how fast the average centaur was, let alone what route Prompto would take, or even if he would be able to endure the entire journey upon his back. The very idea set a part of him on edge in that way he was coming to be uncomfortably aware of. Like he was reducing Prompto to just the more animal parts of his body.

“I’d be happy to take you along, I carry Noct around all the time! And, uh, I’m sorry to say this, but none of the buses in this area go near there, you’d have to head to the next district over at least to find one that heads that way, and you’re kinda running out of time.”

Ignis sighed and hissed a curse under his breath, feeling like he had lost an argument he hadn’t even had time to work out a protest for.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “the number of rides Noct hitches does lead me to wonder sometimes.”  
Prompto shrugged.

“I don’t mind at all, it’s faster for both of us, and it makes him happy,” he reasoned, grinning brightly, “and yeah, it’s not like it’s any hassle for me, he’s not heavy, it’s only really rude if you jump on a centaur’s back without permission.”

“I see,” Ignis said, hefting his satchel up to stretch his stiffening shoulder, before releasing another loud sigh, “very well, if you’re certain it’s no trouble.”

Prompto beamed, his silky tail swishing happily.

“None at all, dude,” he chirped, gesturing towards the low flight of stairs he had just descended from the frontal parking of his apartment building, “you’ll probably need a boost, oh and here, give me your bag, I can attach it to my saddlebags, you’ll want two hands to hold on, trust me.”

“Right,” Ignis replied a little faintly, watching Prompto rummage through one of the smaller, zipped compartments of the bag on his left flank, pulling out what looked like a worn, rolled up leather belt.

“Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as you think, you won’t fall straight off,” he said cheerfully, looping the strap through one of the many metal rings scattered over the bags and reaching out to take his, “I promise to get you to your class in one piece, and on time, speaking of, uh, what time does your class start?”

Ignis arched a brow at that but couldn’t hold back a small smile at his enthusiasm, relinquishing his satchel and watching with interest as Prompto carefully slipped the belt around its width and under the handle, buckling it tight to his side.

“It begins at 9:30, but I must admit to being at a loss here,” he said, carefully stowing his phone and keys into the pockets of his jacket, “I’m afraid the closest I have come to this sort of thing is chocobo riding, and I don’t really imagine it’s too similar.”

Ignis felt a pang of regret instantly shoot through him at his words. Since the incident in Noctis’ apartment, when Prompto had turned up with his legs brutally scratched up from an assault by a group of drunk teenagers, he had done quite a bit of self-reflection on his own decidedly cold and presumptuous treatment of the centaur. Further research he had done in his own time had returned a shocking number of truly despicable cases of racism within the city that he dearly wished had not been real, and he hadn’t been able to stomach reading some of the worse ones for long. Instead, he had poured more of his time into learning the basics of centaur anatomy and lifestyle, in the hope that he might make the nights he stayed over at Noct’s apartment a bit more comfortable.

“I honestly wouldn’t know,” Prompto said amicably, not phased by the comparison to the animals at all (then again, Noctis had told him he adored the giant birds, and often dramatically lamented the fact that he would never be able to ride one), “but hey, I won’t let you fall, also we’d better get going if you don’t want to be late.”

“Right, of course,” Ignis agreed, snapping out of his uncertainty and striding back up to the third step, “so, how would you like me to do this? I don’t want to hurt you at all.”

Prompto was right back to beaming, his cheeks slightly flushed, making his freckles stand out all the more as he lined himself up so that the bare dip of his back was directly in front of him.

“Trust me, I’d honestly be shocked if you did, I’ve got real thick skin. You can use the saddlebag straps as a grip, then just jump and swing your leg over and haul yourself up. You can use my leg as a step too if you want.”

He curled the nearest foreleg up into a hook at that, waiting in case he needed it. Ignis wasn’t really sure the thin limb would support his weight but, gauging the height with the boost of the step, he decided he wouldn’t need it in any case. He performed far greater acrobatic feats in his combat training, this wouldn’t be difficult.

He found himself swiftly regretting that thought as he took the small leap, swinging his leg up and over the space just behind where the thick leather of the bag strap rested and quickly realized he had overcompensated. Were it not for Prompto throwing his arms back to bracket him in behind his human torso he might have gone clear over his back and right off the other side.

Ignis took a deep breath, shuffling himself until he felt properly balanced over the centaur’s spine, feeling the hard planes of muscle and bone pressing into his thighs, though not in an unbearable way.

“Thank you, Prompto,” Ignis said evenly. Prompto shot a far too amused grin over his shoulder at him.

“Never had someone that eager before,” he said cheekily, shuffling his hooves and making Ignis tighten his hold on the bag straps instinctively.

“You will kindly not speak of that to Noctis,” he said, trying to sound firm, but with Prompto’s steadily growing ease around him came an unforeseen consequence: his presence was no longer intimidating enough to stop him from sharing such embarrassing stories with the Prince.  
“Hmm, maybe,” Prompto replied, drawing out the ‘maybe’.

“I suppose then you won’t be wanting any of the orange cake I was planning on making this weekend then.”

“Well, Noct doesn’t have to know everything I guess,” Prompto said hurriedly.

“Glad to hear you agree,” Ignis replied, more than a little smug.

“Well then,” Prompto said airily, “ready for the best taxi service of your life?”

Ignis snorted.

“I shall reserve my judgement until the end of the trip,” he said, shuffling his weight again until he felt completely balanced, “but I do very much appreciate it.”

“Aww, it’s nothing,” Prompto said, ducking his head shyly, before straightening and, slowly to start, beginning to walk down the mostly empty path.

Ignis hummed softly at the odd swaying motion, concentrating for the first half minute or so on simply growing accustomed to the movement, trying to match his own center of gravity with the peak of Prompto’s spine and, as he had assured, finding it nowhere near as precarious as he had anticipated. Prompto’s hooves made an uneven yet somehow rhythmic beat against the concrete, slightly metallic from the shoes nailed to the base of each of his hooves (that had been an interesting if slightly panicked conversation he had walked in on, Noctis very much disliked that entire process, despite Prompto’s repeated assurances that not one part of it hurt).

“Not as perilous as I expected,” Ignis voiced his observation, catching the blinding grin Prompto threw over his shoulder at him.

“What did I tell you?” he said, “we’re not that unsteady, but you might want to hold that thought, I’m gonna pick up the pace when we get down by the canals, otherwise we won’t make it in time.”

“Down by the canals?” Ignis said dubiously, “why not take a more direct route?”

“Cause a lot of the places a straight path takes us through aren’t exactly… well, let’s say centaur-friendly,” Prompto said, a little slowly Ignis noted, tensing his legs as he began to lengthen his strides to more of a pace (he was rather pleased he remembered the name of the gait), “y’know, lots of stairs and crowds and traffic and stuff, the canal walkways will get us there way faster, trust me.”

Ignis supposed he hadn’t really thought how all of that would provide difficulty to a centaur.

“Very well,” he agreed, adding far more pleasantly, “I suppose the scenery will be a rather nice change of pace.”

“Don’t go that way often?” Prompto asked, stopping at a set of traffic lights and waiting for the pedestrian light to change.

“No need to really-“ he discretely checked that his bag was still secure at Prompto’s flank, “-it’s always been personal chauffeurs or driving under my own power.”

“Right-“ Prompto gave a gentle lurch as the light changed, crossing the street alongside a few scattered commuters, he heaved a wistful sigh, “-kind of wish I knew what riding in a car was like.”

Ignis blinked, wondering belatedly how he hadn’t put that together and internally wincing at his blasé choice of words.

“Of course,” he finally said, letting his gaze settle on the unruly mop of blonde hair before him, “apologies, I… had never realized before just how many mundane things are completely inaccessible to centaurs.”

Prompto chuckled nervously, turning down a narrower street where Ignis could glimpse flashes of watery reflections from the river bouncing off the concrete and buildings in the distance, knowing they were nearing one of the many canals splitting the city.

“Most people just… don’t really think about it I guess, it’s alright, all of us city centaurs are pretty street smart.”

Ignis could tell he was trying to play it off to amuse him, to dodge the discomfort, but he could feel his spine tense beneath him.

“It’s not so bad,” Prompto continued, like he thought he wouldn’t go on about it if he reassured him enough, “centaurs need a lot more exercise than humans anyway, all the walking does us good.”

“I did read that the physical exercise requirements for a healthy body in a centaur was far greater than a human’s, however, I don’t believe that is an excuse to just not try at all to provide forms of transport for you.”

“If worst comes the worst, there are ways we can get transport,” Prompto said hurriedly, “there’s an old guy I know whose friends with a couple of bus and truck drivers that’ve modified some of their vehicles to take centaur passengers. It’s like, pretty awkward and not exactly, uh, the safest ride but it works, if we wanna take a trip outside the city that’s usually the way.”

Ignis nodded and applied his extensive patience training to not voice his distress at having such limited and impractical transport options.

“But you haven’t ridden in them before?” He settled on gently, glancing at a couple of passersby from the corner of his eye and furrowing his brow at the irritated look they threw them. Prompto shifted them until they were hugging the walls of the buildings, not even pausing in his answer to do it.

“Nah, not me, never really had any need to, though people have told me it’s good for a centaur to get out of the city, just don’t have the time with school and everything I guess, plus like, where would I even go?”

Ignis snorted, patting the soft, amber fur of his flank.

“I suppose that is true,” he agreed, but he couldn’t keep his mind from straying back to the subject at hand, no matter how Prompto tried to make light of it, “what about the subway systems? Surely those are large enough to house centaur passengers?”

Ignis knew he had inadvertently bumbled into something deeply uncomfortable before he had even finished the sentence, because both sets of Prompto’s shoulders went rigid. Only for a split second for the pair on his hindquarters, as they were occupied with keeping a steady pace, but he noticed. If that didn’t tell him though, the long moments of silence that followed were so unnatural from the normally so upbeat blonde it really did make him wince internally. But he still waited patiently for an answer, knowing a little guiltily that Prompto would feel pressured to give one.

“W-well, y’know,” Prompto said hesitantly, his pace stuttering as his legs seemed to get a little ahead of his body, like he was fighting down the urge to bolt, “uh, centaurs kinda… kinda aren’t really allowed on the train systems… y’know on account of accidentally causing damage or- or hitting people and stuff.”

It was Ignis’ turn to sit in silence for a long moment, physically withholding himself from speaking exactly what was flying through his mind at his words. He had not seen any such laws mentioned or even hinted at in his research, which led him to believe that it was not an actual, written and authorized law but a social one implemented by a bigoted populace.

“Prompto, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think that’s a real law, not one authorized by the Council or the King in any case,” he said gently. Prompto made a small, slightly watery noise.

“It… doesn’t really matter,” he said, almost disturbingly timid, “it’s not about whether it’s an actual law or not it’s… it’s more complicated than that.”

“It’s about how most human citizens view centaurs?” Ignis pressed gently.

“Yeah, I guess,” Prompto agreed, his pace slowing as they came towards the end of the street, where more people crowded between them and the grass-lined canals just ahead, “people don’t… they don’t really like us taking up so much space, and I mean, who wouldn’t we are pretty big I mean I’m technically a pretty small centaur and-“

“Prompto,” Ignis interrupted, straining to keep his voice gentle, “you shouldn’t have to give reason to other people’s bigotry, their views are twisted and wrong.”

“I know,” he replied softly, “can we… can we talk about something else? Please.”

“Of course,” Ignis replied, deciding he had probed far enough for today and had plenty of new things to ponder, “I apologize for pressing you.”

“No, no it’s really alright,” Prompto gushed, gesturing with his hands before letting them fall back to his sides, “I appreciate that you show interest at all, it’s just… I’m probably not great at explaining it, there’s… a lot and it’s hard to say it right.”

“From the small amount of reading I have done, I’m starting to see that is very true.”

Prompto didn’t say anything to that, just focused on the people milling around them as the pedestrian light permitted them all to cross the road.

His whole body seemed to sigh beneath him as his hooves hit grass, both of them taking a moment to just enjoy the view before them. Morning light bounced through the towering buildings and off the rippling water, a myriad of coloured patterns dancing in the faint mist drifting across the ground.

It was a serene sight, one Ignis hadn’t had pause to appreciate in quite some time. Most of his days were so tightly scheduled there simply wasn’t time between his classes, appointments and chasing after the Prince. This was nice, even the somewhat uncomfortable position on Prompto’s back was oddly soothing, and the steady swaying was nowhere near as nauseas as he had been inclined to think. The whole experience was just… enjoyable, which he found somewhat startling yet couldn’t stop the small smile from twitching up the corners of his lips.  
“I’m gonna speed up now alright?” Prompto said, some of his usual cheer returning to his voice, Ignis felt more than saw his tail swishing with barely withheld excitement, “let me know if you start to slip.”

“Off we go then,” Ignis replied, straightening and tightening his hold as Prompto began to lengthen his strides, the gentle bob and sway of his gait strengthening as he broke into a trot, until Ignis felt himself bouncing every time his hooves hit the ground. He shifted a little awkwardly, trying to find a position that didn’t feel as embarrassing as he imagined it looked.

“Try to use your knees to rise and fall with me,” Prompto said, as though reading his mind, flashing a grin over his shoulder that made his fluffy hair bounce wildly, “if Noct can get it, I know you can Iggy!”

Ignis couldn’t help a chuckle at that, before focusing on the task at hand. Sure enough, it did not take him long to find a steady rhythm, using his knees to grip his flanks (at Prompto’s insistence that he could barely feel it), rising with the blonde’s gait and falling to meet his spine again when he fell. He mused it may well have worked up to a decent exercise routine had they been traveling a great distance, he could already feel a slow burn beginning to warm through his thigh muscles.

“Now you’re getting it!”

Ignis gave a surprised laugh, rising and falling with renewed vigor as Prompto increased his speed again, the long stretch of grass before them allowing him to reach what Ignis assumed was a canter. He was astonished to find it a smoother ride than the trot, but twice as thrilling. Moving at speed, not even Prompto’s highest at that, he could feel the power of the body beneath him, felt how the muscles coiled and hardened and carried them both forward faster and further with every second.

Ignis didn’t realise he had been grinning the entire time until his face began to ache, but it was just so damn easy to be swept up in the excitement of it all. Prompto’s carefree laughter rung through the morning air like a bell, the paths of the canalside far less bustling than the streets of the city and all the more enjoyable for it. As predicted, people kept to the clear-cut paths at the waterside, leaving the vast swathes of open grass ripe for the running and Prompto took to them gleefully. His hooves ate up the distance, the dull thudding only broken occasionally when his feet hit the stone of one of the paths that chopped up the vivid, green parks into sections.

“Not half bad Iggy,” Prompto called over his shoulder, barely out of breath, “you got the rhythm way faster than Noct did. Not slipping too much are you?”

“Not at all actually,” Ignis replied, taking in the morning light dappling the water's surface as it slid past, “it’s rather exhilarating.”

“Glad you think so!”

Turning his gaze from the river, he refocused ahead to find the familiar, arching back of a bridge approaching in the distance, its silver, crisscrossed pillars gleaming so white he couldn’t stand to stare at it for too long. Prompto steadily began to slow back down as they came up on it, down to a pace, so smooth it almost felt like they were gliding over the grass, then to a trot, and slower still to a brisk walk as hooves met concrete once more.

The river filtered into wider canals here, splitting Insomnia into large sections, and the bridge spanned one of them. One that Ignis, with a jolt, realized he recognized, and subsequently also how close they already were to the university district.

“We’re over halfway there already,” he voiced in surprise, blinking at the dark, roiling water below as they crossed.

“Told you I’d get you there on time,” Prompto said, a note of pride in his words.

“At this rate you’ll get me there early.”

“Huh, in that case, care for a coffee?”

Ignis followed the gesture Prompto made, spotting a small, pop-up café set up out of a brightly coloured van in the park ahead of them. A decent number of patrons milled around it, standing at the open side window or sitting at the small, wooden tables dotted across the grass. What drew his attention the most however, was that at least half of them were centaurs of every colour and size. As they drew closer, he also noted that not all of the round tables were the same height, some were higher, occupied by centaurs who stood around them in pairs or trios, their take away cups steaming on the pale wood. Every heightened table was occupied, and even some of the lower ones, by centaurs lying on their sides or, as Noct liked to call it, in the loaf position.

“Only if I’m buying,” Ignis replied breezily, tuning out the inevitable protests to rake in the last details of the curious little café. It was all rather charming. He also noted, with a little relief, that he wasn’t the only human sat upon a centaur, several customers had what he could only assume were friends sat on their backs. One young man had even chosen to drape himself (in a manner shockingly reminiscent of Noct) over the back of a chestnut coated woman lying beside a smaller table.

As he watched, the curly-haired man twisted his upper body more to face the back of the woman’s head, nudging a dark shoulder until she turned before darting forward to peck the corner of her lips. A wide, flustered smile instantly split her face, and she leant her head back to affectionately bump his forehead in return.

Oh. Huh.

“-and it’s really no hassle, I don’t expect you to pay for my stuff I can- “

“Prompto, you’re the one carrying me across the city,” Ignis interrupted, using the tone he normally used when Noct was being disagreeable, normally when he tried to get him up in the morning, “it’s the very least I could do.”

“I was heading this way anyway,” Prompto fruitlessly reminded, guiding them smoothly off the bridge and back to grass towards the coffee shop, “really I can grab this, drinks are part of the travel service.”

Ignis rolled his eyes, forcing back the smile tugging at his lips. But he’d be damned if he let the blonde buy this on top of everything else.

“Absolutely not and I will hear no more arguments, you’ve carried me this entire way, so I will pay for the coffee.”

Prompto was silent for a few moments, his human back stiff and straight, before his shoulders slumped and he huffed a sigh.

“Alright, if you’re sure,” he said, “thanks Iggy.”

“I’m very sure.”

Ignis checked the time on his watch, just to make sure they had time for the pit stop, and was once again blindsided by how little time it had taken Prompto to reach the district-splitting river. They still had plenty of time if he took around the same time to travel the last of the way. Ignis could almost feel the last dregs of anxious energy clinging in his chest drip away like dust under rain.

“What would you like, Iggy?” Prompto said cheerily, sidling up to the window.

“Just a latte please,” Ignis answered, “no sugar needed.”

“No idea how you can even swallow it,” Prompto mumbled.

“Heya Prom,” a loud, female voice piped up, placed immediately as belonging to the young woman with startlingly bright dyed hair that leant out the van to greet them, “haven’t seen you drop by in a while, how’ve you been keeping?”

“Not bad El, and you?”

“Can’t complain when all my customers are as sweet as you.”

Ignis brows furrowed, wondering if he should excuse himself if that was where the conversation was headed, though he never would have placed Prompto as the flirty type, he was far too easily flustered and shy. Prompto gave a sharp bark of laughter.

“Gods that was awful Elena,” he gasped. The woman, Elena, shot him an extremely false glare.

“You don’t like my customer service voice? You’re supposed to,” she said, flicking a brilliant crimson strand of hair out of her face, “and what can I get you and your friend here today?”

“Oh right! Can we just grab a regular latte and a mocha with two sugars please?”

“Sure thing,” Elena said with a wink, turning and beginning to fiddle with the various parts of the coffee machine that took up most of the opposite wall of the van. She raised her voice as it whirred to life, glancing back over her shoulder at them as her hands worked with practiced ease, filling parts of the machine with coffee grounds and attaching nozzles to the milk-frother.

“It’s weird to see you with a new passenger Goldilocks,” Elena said with a cheeky grin, yet her eyes were more than a little searching as they flicked between them, “what happened to the usual guy? He’s always so keen to see Frenchie, I’m almost sad he’s missing out.”

“Ah he’s fine, just busy today.”

Ignis narrowed his eyes, far too aware that there was only one other person Prompto gave rides to.

“Frenchie?” He said, trying to keep his tone curious and not blatantly suspicious. Elena smiled knowingly, sticking an arm out the window and pointing at something down and to the left. Ignis followed her finger, and almost slapped himself at what he saw.

What was quite possibly the fattest, black and white cat he had ever seen was curled up fast asleep on a folded blanket, set upon an upturned milkcrate. Above the comatose feline, a sign was stuck to the side of the vehicle, simply reading ‘Frenchie’ then, in brackets beneath it, ‘short for French Fry’, and an arrow pointing downward, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the cat in question would be lain beneath it.

Yes, that was so entirely Noct it was almost painful.

He could see Prompto’s shoulders shaking with silent mirth in front of him and he resisted the urge to cuff him on the arm, settling for a light squeeze with his legs instead.

“That sounds about right,” he said.

“You know the cat guy? He practically lights up when he sees fat cat down there, though I’m pretty sure last time he was trying to work out if he could fit him into your saddlebag, Prom,” Elena said in amusement, “would kinda appreciate it if you two didn’t walk off with my main customer magnet.”

Prompto snorted and Ignis tried to suppress a fond, if exasperated, smile at the mental image, finding it not hard to conjure at all.

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” he agreed.

“Come on El, we all know the mascot’s not the draw here, you do make a mean cup of coffee,” Prompto said, leaning his elbows on the small window counter. Elena arched an eyebrow at him.

“No different to any other place in the city, just got creative with where I set up.”

“You’re a genius, girl,” Prompto said, shooting her a finger gun.

“Gods you’re a dork,” she said but there was no malice to it whatsoever.

Ignis might have found it all amusing were his eyes not drawn to another sign stuck to the side of the window, above the price listings. ‘All people welcome’ it read innocently, silhouettes of both a human and a centaur on either side of the words, yet it sent Ignis’s mind spiraling once again down that dark path from earlier.

“Prompto, do some cafes not allow centaur customers?” He said slowly.

Prompto froze up instantly and Ignis didn’t need more of an answer than that. Elena seemed far more vocal about it however, as she turned back to fully face them with an indignant scoff and fire in her eyes. The steam of the flowing coffee and frothing milk behind her only completing the image of righteous fury.

“Guess you’re new to this whole thing huh? It’d be easier to list the places that bloody do allow them,” she all but spat, “far too many places like to say they’re too big and potentially destructive, can’t risk scratching up all their nice shiny floors, can they?”

“Elena- “ Prompto began, with a tone that spoke of many times hearing this.

“No it’s a load of shit and you know it,” she continued, directing her full attention on Ignis, latching on to him as the only other between them eager to hear what she had to say, “it’s not even a law it’s just the owners being scumbags, did you know that most of the places round here won’t even let a centaur through the door? And the worst refuse to even serve them, the real fancy, expensive ones.”

“I was not aware,” Ignis said tightly, not missing how Prompto’s shoulders all but collapsed before him in resignation.

“S’not like they’d advertise it, that might see them get some kind of punishment,” Elena muttered bitterly, “though I tend to doubt it given how little anyone does about it, I’m so gods damned sick of seeing it every day, can’t even imagine how you guys live with it, Prom.”

“It’s… not that bad,” Prompto mumbled, “there’s plenty of places that take us too.”

“That doesn’t make the ones that refuse to right,” Ignis said, forcing down the fury boiling over in his chest, “I had no idea the extent of the animosity towards centaurs, but the more I learn I fear the more I wish I hadn’t.”

Elena huffed, presumably at the truth of that.

“Better than sticking your head in the sand though,” she grumbled, flicking off the milk frother just before it could overflow and beginning to pour it into their cups, “I honestly don’t know how those bastards can get away with it, and with everything going on with Niflheim, feels like it’s only gonna get worse.”

Prompto sighed.

“Don’t bring that up.”

Elena’s anger ebbed at that, pinching in sympathy as she turned back to them, their steaming drinks in hand.

“Sorry man, I know you’re probably tired of hearing it.”

“Yeah,” Prompto said awkwardly, dragging a hand through his hair and shuffling his hooves, “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s good you don’t ignore it, and you make your shop so accessible to us, but… yeah, it’s just tiring.”

“I can imagine,” Elena said softly, a sentiment Ignis mirrored by gently running his hand over his flank, “I’m just sorry you have to deal with it at all.”

“Well,” Prompto said, perking up with a smile that looked only slightly forced, “it takes time for things to change right? I reckon things will get better, I mean, if there’s people like you and Iggy around who actually bother to listen to us, then there’s gotta be hope right?”

Elena smiled fondly and again, Ignis could feel himself mirroring her. He mused that he might just have to swing by the coffee van another time without Prompto. Elena seemed rather good for conversation on the touchy subject.

“I’ll toast to that,” Elena said jokingly, raising their cups to them. Prompto snorted at the pun and took them while Ignis pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket, side-eying Prompto in case he attempted to reach for his own, but true to his word he only reached out to take their drinks. Satisfied, he pulled out double the amount owed, feeling such an independent little business more than deserved it. Especially after that conversation.

Clearly picking up what he was doing, Prompto shuffled his rear legs around so he was close enough to the window for him to offer the note to the woman.

“Please, keep the change,” he offered. Elena looked up at him in surprise, before her eyebrow quirked and a smile curled one side of her lips up. Her dark eyes flicked back to Prompto.

“Bring this one more often,” she said flatly.

Prompto huffed a sharp laugh and Ignis chuckled along good-naturedly, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

“If the coffee’s as good as Prompto believes then he won’t need to,” he assured.

“Hmph, guess I can’t lure everyone with the cat,” she grumbled jokingly but the smile she offered him was warm, “then I certainly hope it’s to your taste, Iggy?”

“Ignis,” he provided, “though I don’t mind.”

Elena nodded, bobbing her sharp eyebrows.

“Fair trade, call me El.”

“Done.”

“Oh!” Prompto jerked straighter, “we still gotta get you to uni, Ignis, here- “

Prompto all but shoved his coffee into his hands, miraculously not spilling any on either of them.

“We gotta run El, cheers for the coffee!”

“Catch you guys later,” Elena said with a wave, “safe travels.”

“Farewell,” Ignis said with a smaller one of his own as Prompto began to walk them off again. While the pace was brisk as they cleared the surrounding tables, back to open grass once more, it wasn’t rough enough to risk either of them spilling their drinks, or dislodging him while he only had one hand free to grip the leather strap in front of him.

“Uh, sorry about all that… uncomfortable stuff back there Ig,” Prompto said softly, and Ignis only just caught his hands wrapped tight around his takeaway cup when his torso turned partway to face him, “Elena’s heart’s in the right place, but sometimes she can get pretty intense about it, apparently once she practically tore some guy apart for complaining about a bunch of centaurs taking up the tables.”

“I fear she sounds like a woman after my own heart,” Ignis joked. Prompto’s eyes snapped to him over his shoulder, and sly smile curling his lip.

“Oh really?”

Ignis cocked an unamused eyebrow back.

“If I’m honest, no not at all, but I find her perspective on all of this… centaur racism, or speciesism I suppose, rather refreshing. It’s reassuring to know not everyone is of such twisted opinions.”

“Definitely.”

Ignis debated his next words for a long moment, pondering whether he should risk probing to the gentle sway of Prompto’s gait. He had to know for sure, he decided, while the topic was still relevant.

“You’ve been denied entry to places before, haven’t you?” -he kept his voice soft, like he was talking to something frail and terrified, easily spooked to flee- “and that’s why you never want to go with Noct to half of the restaurants he recommends isn’t it? They won’t let you in.”

Prompto didn’t look back at him this time, though his head bowed, and his pace didn’t falter, like he had been waiting for it.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”

Ignis wanted nothing more than to throttle the owners of each and every one of them personally.

“The places Noct always says we should go to eat, I’m sure they’re great,” Prompto continued faintly, “but they wouldn’t even let me through the door, after a while you can just tell what places will let you in and which won’t y’know? All the ones Noct shows me are too small, too tight, too much breakable stuff, too nice to risk letting a centaur in.”

Ignis closed his eyes and counted to three.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.

“S’not your fault, Insomnia’s a human city, it makes sense it wouldn’t really be suited to centaurs, we get by though.”

Ignis took a moment to recompose his thoughts by taking a sip of his coffee. It was as good as Prompto had said it would be, and he welcomed the heat as it flowed into his chest.

“We both know that’s not an excuse, and Elena proves there are ways to cater to all types of people at the same time,” he paused, tossing up his next question, despite feeling he already knew the answer, “have you told Noct about this?”

“No,” Prompto said quickly, taking a swig of his own drink like he was suddenly dying of thirst and visibly wincing at the heat.

“Perhaps you should, at the very least to stop him getting suspicious, he’ll work it out eventually.”

“I… I know, but I don’t want him to worry about it, and it’s not like there’s nowhere to go or anything.”

Prompto went quiet, Ignis waited, expecting more.

“Please don’t tell him,” he whispered, “it’ll just upset him.”

Prompto was right, it would. Ignis sighed.

“It is not for me to tell,” he said gently, rubbing circles into velvety fur with his thumb, “but I do believe you should, sooner rather than later.”

“I will I just, I’ll wait for things to settle down a bit first, I know Noct’s been stressed with all his Prince stuff happening lately, and school on top of that.”

Ignis took another thoughtful sip of his coffee, watching grass give way to concrete beneath them as Prompto turned up the next path branching away from the water’s edge and back towards the high-rises of the larger city.

“Very well, I will hold you to that.”

Prompto released the breath he had been holding.

“Thanks Ig.”

“No, thank you,” Ignis shot back, before straightening himself and injecting something a bit livelier into his voice, “I know this area, we’re close now, and still with twenty minutes to spare.”

“Plenty of time,” Prompto agreed, trotting up a low flight of stairs and back into the more cluttered city streets, retreating to all but straddle the sides of the buildings once more.

“So, you got many classes today anyway?”

“Hmm, not too many, only three, a couple of lectures and a group class.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Prompto mused, sipping at his mocha, “did you need a lift back home too? If so just let me know the time and I can- “

“Absolutely not,” Ignis cut him off, “you have already done more than enough for me for one day, I can organize a car from the Citadel to pick me up.”

“Ah, ok!”

“Not that I don’t greatly appreciate the offer though,” Ignis added, pleased when he spotted a flustered little flush crawling up the back of the blonde’s neck.

“It’s nothing,” he said shyly, taking the next left turn on to a large main road, and Ignis knew from here it was only three blocks and a right across the street to his university.

He was coming to rather enjoy the sound of hooves on stone, the steady, hollow rhythm soothing in its surety. The comfortable silence between them and the ambience of the city settled warmly around them, washing against his skin in an ever-familiar tide. Ignis steadily worked through his coffee, simply basking in the rare moment of calm, not having to focus on driving, or being on time for his classes, or for anyone other than himself for one glorious journey.

Every pause at sets of traffic lights, waiting to cross with the pedestrian signals, made a small, all but buried part of him cheer as the wait extended the ride. Some whispering little voice from a childhood he hadn’t lived giggling excitedly in the back of his mind.

But he knew nothing could last forever. Far sooner than he would have liked, Prompto was crossing the street and heading down the clean, tree-lined university strip, the salty smell of the river sharp in the air. Tall, wrought iron gates hung wide open on to immaculate gardens and a giant, sprawling main building that was almost as old as the city itself. Ignis had seen it many times before, and he did like his university well enough, but it was very clear Prompto had never seen anything like it, his head swiveling around like he couldn’t decide what to focus on and his fingers doing that twitchy thing he did when he wanted to take a photo.

Prompto hesitated at the gates, his body going tight beneath him and Ignis knew immediately the problem.

“University’s are open to the public, you are welcome to enter,” he said gently.

“Right,” Prompto said, still uncertain, but after one more moment he began forward again and through into the grounds. Paths wound through the vivid gardens, scattered with flat topped walls and hidden nooks buried in their depths for the bored or particularly adventurous student to find.

“Wow, your uni’s amazing Ig,” Prompto breathed excitedly, beaming at practically everything that caught his eye. Plenty of students were milling around the main area of the campus this time of the morning, chatting with friends before their classes started.

Prompto wasn’t exactly a subtle presence, his size and bright colours making him stick out in a crowd, and many heads turned to throw curious looks and even amused smiles at them as they passed. To his consternation, though not his surprise, not everyone seemed to like the centaur on the university grounds, with looks that ranged from irritated to downright venomous. Ignis glowered right back at one who foolishly locked eyes with him, and he mused that his reputation as retainer to the future king was about to serve him very, very well.

“That main building’s so beautiful, and the gardens?!”

Prompto seemed far too busy blathering to notice the looks, though Ignis mused that he may well have been aware of them and simply feigning ignorance, as he was used to doing. He would let him go on believing he didn’t know, he hardly wanted to ruin his good mood.

“I am lucky to have the opportunity to attend here indeed,” Ignis agreed, gaze flicking to one of the entrances on the left wing, “my first class is down that way, so you can just drop me here.”

“No way Iggy,” Prompto said, turning towards where he had gestured, “this taxi service takes you all the way to the door.”

Ignis chuckled.

“As you wish, then I believe your final rating will be a high one.”

“Aww yeah!” Prompto crowed, bouncing lightly on his hooves, pulling another soft laugh from his lips. At long last though, the journey was at an end, and Prompto came to a stop beside the crisp, white staircase leading up to wide, wooden doors.

“Welp, I guess we’re here,” Prompto said, “hold on, I’ll drop down so you can get off.”

“No need,” Ignis said quickly, before slinging his leg over his back and sliding smoothly back down to solid ground, pleased when his legs only wobbled a little as they again took his weight. He imagined his thighs would be feeling a bit tender later, though he didn’t give the thought voice and hoped the warm flush he could feel on his cheeks wasn’t too noticeable.

“Huh, nice dismount, you didn’t even spill your coffee,” Prompto said easily, already twisting to fiddle with the strap buckling his bag to his side and, after a long moment struggling with the buckle, turning to offer it back to him with a bright smile. Ignis idly noted he had set his own drink on his own hindquarters, using the flat area over his hips like a table. He doubted he could truly say why he found that charming.

“Here ya go, oh geez Iggy your hair!”

Ignis blinked, his free hand shooting up to his head, finding it thoroughly unruly beneath his fingers.

“Ah crap, sorry, it must have been the run that messed it up, we had plenty of time, I should have taken it slower.”

“I’m rather glad you didn’t,” Ignis hummed, dragging his fingers through the mess and finding he didn’t truly care if it wasn’t perfectly styled, “I believe that was my favourite part of the trip.”

Prompto looked thoroughly blindsided, before a huge grin burned the anxiety right out of his eyes.

“Glad to hear it, Noct always says so, though he’s still always trying to get me to go to my top speed, not really a great idea in the city.”

“Nor for the Prince of Lucis to be goading you to try it,” Ignis grumbled.

Prompto snickered, shaking his head in obvious fondness, relinquishing his hold on his satchel as Ignis finally took it from him.

“In any case, I cannot thank you enough for getting me here,” Ignis said, and truly meant it, he certainly hadn’t seen his morning going the way it had, but couldn’t say he disliked that it had, “I will have to make some of that green curry soup you’re so fond of as thanks.”

Prompto’s eyes lit up.

“Not like I’ll say no to that,” he said, “but really, it was no biggy, was nice to have some company.”

“Agreed,” Ignis said, checking his watch as he rather suddenly remembered he still did have a class to catch, “but with that I have to head in, or risk getting all this way and still being late.”

“Oh right!” Prompto said with a jolt, “you’d better go, good luck in your classes, and thanks for the coffee!”

Ignis glanced back as he moved up the stairs, waving with two spare fingers around his takeaway cup.

“Thanks again, good luck to you as well with your coat and I will have Noct set up a night for that curry.”

“Looking forward to it man,” Prompto shot back, beginning to turn and head off himself. Ignis quirked an amused eyebrow.

“Your drink,” he called, returning his eyes forward and climbing the last of the stairs.

“Oh crap!” Followed him through the doors and into the halls beyond, and Ignis couldn’t withhold a fond smile in return.


	6. Art: 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> B A M B O O Z L E D

Wow ok so, originally I wasn’t gonna post this until I had finished the next chapter but consider this… I’m weak.

So! I’ve had nicknames for different centaur body builds in my mind for a while now since, in the ffxv verse, I wouldn’t imagine horse breeds would be a thing. So the three build nicknames were born, lorewise they were coined by centaurs themselves, not humans as one might suspect, and is more of a colloquial set of terms than anything actually formal. 

So we got: Pullers, Runners and Pedigrees (plus a kid centaur cause why not), are these actual characters that will appear in the fic??? :^) Guess that’s for me to know for now…

More info on each centaur build can be found over on the post on my tumblr blog: https://dovefanworks.tumblr.com/post/182895024172/wow-ok-so-originally-i-wasnt-gonna-post-this

(Would kinda recommend following me there if you crave more horf boi AU, I want to upload more rough, unfinished doodles there, since I don't really want to keep flooding my fic with art instead of actual chapters. I also want to potentially answer interesting asks I might get for this AU with art if I have the time and inspiration! So hit me with your best shot!)


	7. Tea Most Scalding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... um, I'm so so sorry this chapter took so long;-;  
> This started out as just a small, fluffy chapter to kinda, build up more lore-related stuff of the worldbuilding whilst being pretty light-hearted. It also gave me a chance to start sliding some NPCs (Non-Playable Centaurs) in here, buuuuut somewhere along the way it grew to over 13k words long:^)))  
> I got no excuse other than I have no restraint and for some reason this supposedly soft and fluffy chapter fought me almost the entire damn way. I can't say I'm entirely happy with this chapter either, but I at least hope you all get some joy out of it;v; Next chapter's gonna have more action in it and hopefully will not take nearly as long as this one did!

As far as greetings went, opening the door to hear Prompto yelling ‘don’t let her out!’ and then almost getting bowled clean over by a flailing mass of gangly limbs and fuzzy grey fur had to be one of the strangest on Noct’s list. At the very least, both he and Ignis, who had been right behind him, managed to get out of the way of the bouncing ball of fur. Which Noctis quickly placed as a very small centaur, the wild giggling being the first thing to give it away, followed by the realization that it wasn’t all fur all the way up, the upper half was smooth, dark skin, dusted in faint freckles.  
  
He didn’t have time to take in anything else, or to even see the… kid’s? face, because she was off like a rocket back up Prompto’s front yard, shooting up the small path they had just come down on legs that looked far too thin to even support her. He was also very aware that the kid wasn’t wearing a damn thing. On her human half that was. Centaurs… didn’t really need to wear anything on their hindquarters aside from blanket-like coats during winter (great for crawling under when it snowed). All of those swirling thoughts were chased from his mind instantly by a second, much larger centaur thundering through the front door after the runaway child, passing so close to them the slipstream from his body tugged at their hair and clothes.  
  
Prompto didn’t even spare them a glance, rushing after the kid like she had just shot off with his precious camera.  
  
“My word,” Ignis breathed in his ear and Noctis became uncomfortably aware that the man had swept him into his arms and against his chest. He pulled away with an indignant look, turning back just in time to see Prompto swoop his human half down, wrap both arms around the tiny centaur’s lower belly and sweep her clear off her hooves just before she could hit the road proper.  
  
“Nooo!” The girl cried in despair, “Prom lemme down lemme down!”  
  
“You’re not getting out of this,” Prompto hissed back, sounding far too amused to actually be angry, his singsonged next words only proving it, “you lost the bet.”  
  
“No I didn’t!” The girl said shrilly, legs kicking wildly in the air as the blonde held her back against his chest, “you cheated!”  
  
“I did not, stop being salty you lost.”  
  
“I’m not salty!”  
  
“Is this a bad time,” Ignis finally said.  
  
Prompto froze, half turned back to them so they could both at last properly see the assailant that had almost taken out the Crown Prince of Lucis. Noctis idly realised he’d never seen such a young centaur before.  
  
The girl looked a couple of years younger than Iris, maybe 10 or 11, but then he wasn’t entirely sure if centaur kids grew the same as humans. Her dark hair was making a break for it, pulling out of the fishtail braid it might once have been in and draping over her shoulder in wild curls. Dark eyes blinked at them curiously from a face still round with the years of childhood, the bright grin that followed revealing a few missing teeth. It was a strange sight. Noctis wouldn’t have even thought Prompto could have lifted such a weight, but what really had him fighting down a snicker was purely the imagery of his friend holding an incredibly small, gangly centaur kid whose legs were still flailing about in midair. It just looked ridiculous.  
  
“Where the hell did you get a kid?” He finally settled on, voicing the question he felt was on both his and Ignis’ minds.  
  
“Huh? I’m babysitting,” Prompto replied eloquently, hefting his apparent charge up where her hindquarters had been steadily slipping downwards, “uh, guys, this is Lila. Lila, this is Ignis and-”  
  
“I know you,” Lila said matter-of-factly, pointing a finger directly at Noctis. He froze, waiting for it. Prompto looked just as tense, knowing how much he hated it.  
  
“You’re from the TV,” she finished. Prompto’s expression instantly fell flat, while Noct could only blink in bemusement. He only just heard what sounded suspiciously like a stifled laugh from Ignis.  
  
“Aww come on Lila, you know you gotta use people’s names,” Prompto said, trying to sound disciplinary but only really sounding like he was whining. Lila cocked her head to look back at him.  
  
“How am I supposed to know? You didn’t say it.”  
  
“Wh- Everyone knows his name! He’s the Prince!”  
  
“Dun’ remember,” Lila mumbled, focused on squirming wildly in her babysitter’s arms, “lemme down I wanna run.”  
  
“How can you- you know what nevermind-” Prompto tightened his hold -“and no way, if I let you go you’ll never come back, your parents’ll kill me.”  
  
“You are already dead,” Lila replied cheerfully. Noctis didn’t have time to choke back his snort.  
  
“Don’t quote anime at me.”  
  
“So… you babysit,” Noctis said slowly, still not really sure how he felt about that, “dude, you can barely take care of yourself.”  
  
Prompto shot him an overly offended look while Lila gave a sharp ‘ha!’.  
  
“Oh I’m sorry bud, we can’t all have nice, hyper-trained Advisor’s to cook and clean for us, I’m still alive aren’t I?”  
  
Noctis floundered for a come back to that.  
  
“Indeed,” Ignis said with a smile, adjusting his glasses as he looked up at the miniature centaur, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, Lila.”  
  
Lila stilled, tilting her head and blinking down at him.  
  
“You sound like my mommas,” she giggled, making Prompto snort and flick his tail. Ignis arched an eyebrow, shooting a look at the blonde.  
  
“Is that so?”  
  
Prompto spoke up before Lila could even open her mouth, chuckling nervously as he hefted her upwards again, his strength beginning to fail.  
  
“Similar accents,” he provided with an aborted shrug, before returning his full attention to his writhing charge, “if I put you down can you not run into oncoming traffic? Go grab your stuff I gotta get you home.”  
  
Lila groaned theatrically, flailing her ridiculously long back legs.  
  
“But they’ll make me do my homewooork.”  
  
“Wait til you get to high school,” Prompto muttered, before something decidedly more sly entered his voice, “if you pack up quick I’ll forget you lost the bet.”  
  
“Deal!”  
  
“Dope,” Prompto said, swooping her back down on to all four hooves. The second they made contact she was off, shooting past her highly bemused audience and back through the front door to disappear into the house.  
  
“And put your shirt back on oh my gods!”  
  
An awkward silence descended like a pack of starving voretooths. Ignis cleared his throat.  
  
“I have heard young centaurs are particularly averse to wearing clothes.”  
  
A bright blush immediately lit the blonde’s cheeks, making his smattering of freckles stick out.  
  
“Yeah, lot of kids don’t like the feeling when they’re that age-” he shrugged, “-but you get used to it.”  
  
“Don’t tell me you used to run around naked,” Noctis teased, grin turning wicked, “tell me there’s photos.”  
  
“Oh, I bet you’d like to see that,” Ignis cut in smoothly, making both the Prince and the blonde splutter, chuckling at them both before continuing, “we apologize for barging in like this Prompto, his Highness insisted on dropping something off to you.”  
  
Despite the furious blush that had spread to engulf most of Noct’s face, he managed to jerk his hand up to offer the plastic bag he had all but forgotten about to the centaur.  
  
“It’s just those comics I was telling you about-” refusing to make eye contact and giving a stiff shrug- “we were coming by this way anyway.”  
  
“Woah, dude, seriously?” Prompto said, the disbelieving excitement in his voice far more endearing than it had any right to be, “thank you so much!”  
  
Noct’s embarrassment instantly seemed to diminish, his shoulders doing that little hitching thing Ignis new meant he was pleased but trying not to make it too blatant.  
  
“It’s nothing.”  
  
“I’ll return em to you next time I come round,” he said, not commenting on the change if he noticed it as he took the bag from him, “also sorry Lila almost took you out, centaur kids have so much energy it’s insane, it’s pretty much impossible to wear em out, but she’s a good kid.”  
  
“I did not take you for a babysitter Prompto,” Ignis said, “it’s an oddly fitting position for you.”  
  
Prompto gave him a cheeky smirk.  
  
“What do you think I’m doing when I hang out with Noct?”  
  
“Beheading,” Noctis declared flatly, slapping the chest of his hindquarters as Ignis tried and kind of failed to choke down a laugh, so he ended up making a noise like a hose that sprung a leak.  
  
“Now who’s salty?” Ignis hummed.  
  
“Two beheadings.”  
  
“Can I have Prom’s head after you cut it off?!”  
  
“Finish packing your stuff!”  
  
The screen door slammed closed again, only the rapidly fading sound of giggling and small hooves on wood hinting that the girl had even been there.  
  
“So…you gotta go far to drop her off or?” Noct said, trying to sound bored.  
  
“Nah-” Prompto set a hand on the junction where his human half met his hindquarters, “-just a couple blocks over.”  
  
“Sweet, wanna get some lunch after then?”  
  
“Oh hell yeah dude!” Prompto barely gave him time to finish his sentence, his hooves doing that little skittering thing he did when he was excited, “I just gotta walk her over there cause like, Lila is magnetically attracted to running into oncoming traffic I swear to gods.”  
  
Noctis snickered.  
  
“You need a child leash.”  
  
“Tried it once, she broke loose in less than five minutes.”  
  
“Hmm, wish I’d thought of that,” Ignis broke in, ignoring the indignant look Noct shot him, “need I remind you that you have a training session with Gladio scheduled this afternoon, Noct?”  
  
“There’s plenty of time,” Noct replied irritably, “or, y’know, I could just skip it for once.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Ignis shot it down before it could even take off.  
  
Prompto hissed in sympathy, “sorry bud, don’t think you’re gonna get it past Iggy.”  
  
“No, you won’t,” Ignis agreed, “but, you do have around an hour and a half before then I suppose, so I can’t say it’s a complete shut down.”  
  
“Yes!” Prompto pumped his fist, “in that case did you wanna head down to that diner by the river? The one we went to a couple weeks ago.”  
  
“Sounds good to me,” Noctis said with a nod.  
  
“You might as well head down there ahead of me then,” Prompto said, fidgeting with the bag a little, “I won’t be long dropping Lila off, you coming too Iggy?”  
  
“Not this time I’m afraid,” Ignis replied, pushing his glasses back up his nose with a small, amused smile, “would hate to interrupt all of the important stuff you two no doubt have to talk about, besides I have a meeting to attend.”  
  
Prompto flushed at that, knowing he was well aware the only ‘important’ things they’d be discussing is their next campaign in whatever video game they were currently obsessing over. Noctis just looked vaguely annoyed.  
  
“Exactly, so don’t you have somewhere else to be?” He grumbled. Ignis hummed, well used to his moodiness.  
  
“Yes, well if you don’t want me hanging around then I assume you would rather walk with Prompto to the diner then?”  
  
“Duh.”  
  
“Then I trust you to keep him in line,” Ignis said, returning his gaze to the blonde.  
  
“Legally, I absolutely can’t do that sorry,” Prompto replied.  
  
“You always do fine, but please ensure he doesn’t conveniently forget his training session this afternoon.”  
  
Prompto mimed a sloppy salute.  
  
“Sir, yes sir.”  
  
“Traitor,” Noctis hissed.  
  
“I will come and pick you up from the diner around a quarter past five then,” Ignis said, paying the Prince’s icy glower no mind and pulling his car keys back out from his jacket pocket, “please send me a text if you wander off this time, don’t make me hunt you down Noct.”  
  
“Wh-”  
  
“Yeah yeah,” Noctis said tiredly, “go away already.”  
  
“And please refrain from swearing in front of children or threatening more beheadings or-”  
  
“Go away!”  
  
“Catch ya later Iggy,” Prompto called with a wave, accustomed to the strangeness of it all by now.  
  
“Until then,” he replied warmly, raising his hand in farewell and sweeping back out the small front yard, the sound of the sleek, black car the two had arrived in starting up shortly after and quickly fading down the street.  
  
“So… babysitting?” Noctis said with a shit eating grin. Prompto shot him a flat look.  
  
“It’s way better than retail.”  
  
Noctis shrugged, and Prompto knew he didn’t really get it. He turned his head back towards the house, hearing the faint sound of hoof beats echoing strangely through the empty rooms.  
  
“Lila! Are you ready to go?”  
  
“Coming!”  
  
The pounding of hooves grew louder, heralding the smaller centaur seconds before she exploded out the door, a backpack swung over one bony shoulder, now blessedly hidden beneath a striped sweater.  
  
“Try not to take my door off the hinges, I only have the one,” Prompto teased, ruffling the girl’s already tangled hair as he trotted past her, stepping halfway through the door to drop off the bag of comics and snatch up his house keys and the familiar set of saddlebags, hung on a sturdy, iron hook on the wall. Lila giggled, slapping his flank hard enough to make a hollow sound, and occupying herself as he locked up the house and buckled his bags around his ‘waist’ by bouncing on the spot, apparently very amused with how her own bag bounced on her shoulders.  
  
“So,” she chirped, turning to beam at the Prince, “you’re Noct right?”  
  
Noctis blinked.  
  
“Uh, yeah?”  
  
Lila flicked her short, fluffy tail.  
  
“Prompto talks about you a lot,” she said, absently stomping one of her forelegs and kicking up a few loose pebbles, “mostly about how much he kicks your butt at video games.”  
  
“Wha-”  
  
“I do not, Lila!”  
  
“You do though-” she locked eyes with Noctis, not hard when she almost came up to his chest and that was kind of terrifying to think about, “-Prompto said you suck at Mario Kart.”  
  
“Lila I swear to gods-”  
  
“Did he?” Noctis said, eyes narrowing up at his friend and a downright evil smirk spreading across his lips, “guess I’ll just have to tell you that Prom has never beaten me in Smash Bros.”  
  
Lila looked like her birthday had come early, her head snapping around at an ungodly speed to point and laugh at her sitter.  
  
“Sounds like you wanna walk to the diner, dude,” Prompto said airily, flicking his tail and pointedly ignoring them both as he walked straight past him and out the front gate, “besides that one round doesn’t count you only won cause the time ran out.”  
  
“Did you win?” Noctis questioned obnoxiously, not at all helped by Lila ‘oooh’-ing behind him. Prompto halted barely two strides down the path, his returning glare kind of weakened by the blatant pout pulling at his lips.  
  
“Wow, you really want some exercise today don’t you bud? Little warm up before Gladio smashes you into the floor?”  
  
“Fuck no, let me up.”  
  
“Swear jar,” Lila crowed, bouncing out the gate and leaving Noctis to scramble through last, yanking it closed after him.  
  
“Hmm, sounds like a ‘yes Prom, I’d love to walk that couple of kilometers’, also yeah you owe Lila a dollar now that’s the rules,” Prompto said, lifting a hand to his chin in mock thought. Noctis made a sound like a drowning cat and began slapping a rhythm-less beat on his side.  
  
“Let me up.”  
  
Prompto hummed, growing louder as Noctis increased the speed and urgency of his tuneless drumming.  
  
“Let me uuup!”  
  
“Do you really deserve it though? Do you really?”  
  
“Prooom-”  
  
“Bye Prompto!” Lila called, already at the end of the street.  
  
“Wait, crap! Lila! Noct hurry up and get on!”  
  
Noctis didn’t need to be told twice and quickly stepped up on to the low wall bordering Prompto’s front garden, bracing his hands on his spine and taking the leap with no hesitation. They had done this so often at this point as to have mounting and dismounting down to a fine art, and it had been ages since Prompto had needed to drop for him. He swung his leg over his back and settled easily into the familiar spot in the dip of his spine, hands falling to their usual position on the straps of his saddlebags.  
  
“She’s getting away,” he pointed out.  
  
“Yeah I know!” Prompto said, real panic entering his voice as the girl’s spotted hindquarters disappeared around the corner and he took off after her, barely giving Noct time to get a firm hold.  
  
“Hey geez-”  
  
“Hold on!”  
  
“Dude a little warning next time!”  
  
Noctis tensed his legs on muscle memory to rise and fall with Prompto’s trot, falling into the rhythm easily where a couple of months ago he had been embarrassingly bad at it. As in bruised-ass bad. Ignis could never know.  
  
As usual, the speed at which Prompto ate up longer distances was a thrill he felt he would never tire of. The dull, metal-tinged ‘clop’ of his hooves almost comforting as they rung in his ears like bells, and the bouncing motion as familiar as walking by now. Prompto often joked about getting him a dedicated blanket to sit on when he hitched a ride, which was pretty much every time they needed to walk any distance these days, but so far hadn’t actually acted on it, to Noctis’ relief. Although, that said, his birthday was coming up and he had a _feeling_ Prompto wasn’t just going to let it go. As long as it didn’t match that gods-forsaken winter rug he wore around his house, the one covered in garish, cartoon chocobos. Besides, he didn’t really see a need for it, the fur wasn’t even a problem unless it was shedding season (Ignis’ worst nightmare, they were still finding amber fur in odd places around the apartment and, despite all the Advisor’s best efforts, somehow still on his clothes).  
  
“Gotcha!”  
  
Noctis blinked back into the moment in time to watch from his perch as Prompto leant down to snag his runaway charge around her hips, making her squeal when he yanked her back legs clear off the ground and just as quickly released her so she bounced.  
  
“What did I tell you about running off when there’s active traffic around, you want me to tell your mothers?”  
  
Lila at least had the sensibility to look chastised, one hand gripping her opposite wrist as she guiltily rocked in place.  
  
“No, but I didn’t go on the road this time!”  
  
“Still, don’t go messing around so far from me,” Prompto insisted, bopping her lightly on the head, “it’s not good for my hearts.”  
  
“Sometimes you remind me you have double most of the organs a human has and it’s kind of terrifying,” Noctis mused, idly tapping a beat into his human shoulder blades, “like, two hearts? Shit that’s wild.”  
  
“Swear jar!” Prompto and Lila said in unison.  
  
“That’s two dollars you owe Lila, bud,” Prompto said, patting the smaller centaur’s hip to usher her forward, flanking her as they continued down the path again, blessedly quiet in the Saturday afternoon.  
  
“Kay,” he agreed, “seriously though, does it feel different? Like, can you feel both your hearts beating?”  
  
“I can when I run really fast,” Lila chirped, bouncing over cracks in the pavement.  
  
“Yeah dude, I mean, I guess I don’t really think about it much, like I can’t feel them both right now, but when I’m running? Sure.”  
  
“Weird,” Noctis said, “can’t imagine having two heartbeats.”  
  
Prompto shrugged. “I can’t imagine having just the one.”  
  
Noctis was silent for a long moment, letting the words sit with him until their little group stopped at a street. Lila reached a hand up to grab Prompto’s, waiting obediently before they began to cross. Given the lazy flow of traffic, Noctis had the feeling it was more to cement the lesson than anything else.  
  
“Never would have thought of you as responsible, Prom.”  
  
Prompto shot him an overly-insulted look over his shoulder.  
  
“Dude, as much as I camp over at your place, I live on my- uh, I mean a decent time I’m on my own, parents working outside of the city and all.”  
  
Noctis narrowed his eyes at him, but Prompto was determinedly not looking at him. He wasn’t stupid, a little slow at times sure, but he noticed more than he was given credit for, in his opinion. And it was painfully easy to notice the absence of any kind of parental care in Prompto’s life. His house always empty, only ever evidence of a single person occupying the place. The few times Noct had even been inside he was struck by the lack of photos or just… any kind of emotional knick knacks at all, for all that Prompto seemed like the type to love those sorts of things. It hit him way harder than he would ever care to admit. Familiarity in the barrenness of a place you were supposed to call home.  
  
“I know how to take care of myself Noct,” Prompto finished prattling on, and Noctis wasn’t even sure when he had tuned him out, “can you say the same?”  
  
Oh he did not just go there.  
  
“Hey, I do know how to do basic shit you know?”  
  
“Swear jar!”  
  
“Damn it.”  
  
Prompto made an exaggerated ‘mm-hm’ noise. “I can look after myself said the Prince of Lucis, currently getting fleeced by a ten year old.”  
  
“Listen!”  
  
“Ignis is the only power on Eos physically standing between you and dying from scurvy.”  
  
“I know how to feed myself!”  
  
“Dude, you wouldn’t make it a week without Iggy, it’d be a bloodbath, pretty sure you can’t actually cook anything aside from cup noodles.”  
  
“I can so-”  
  
“Chips and soft drink don’t count and neither does ordering takeout.”  
  
Noctis scowled, glowering at the back of his friend’s head. Lila looked up to meet Noctis’ gaze, beaming crookedly.  
  
“You’re getting so roasted,” she pointed out, rather needlessly.  
  
“I know, this is treason.”  
  
Prompto laughed while Lila mumbled something that sounded like ‘I don’t know what that is’. The chatter and teasing kept up as they crossed another two blocks, their little group abuzz with the sounds of laughter and hoof beats, the familiar background noise settling like fluttering butterflies around flowers in the summer. Their imaginary wings licked against his skin, sending warm tingles all through him before they pooled like a warm drink in his chest. The warmth was like a balm to every ail in his body and mind, and he craved it like an addiction. Luckily, Prompto didn’t seem to have any hesitance giving it.  
  
“Almost home,” Lila’s merry, lightly accented voice broke his thoughts, and he faked a cough into his arm to hide the flush he could feel working its way over his cheeks at how sappy that had been. He busied himself with looking ahead and attempting to guess which house was their destination. In the end though, the answer was obvious.  
  
The house was so blatantly different to the common, suburban designs around it that it might as well have had a flashing neon sign that read ‘Centaurs Live Here!’. For a start, even from a distance, the doors were taller and wider than normal, dark wood with what looked like wrought iron inlays as they drew closer. The path up to the door was also wider, flat stone flanked by open grass and bordered with carefully kept gardens overflowing with flowers of every colour and size. Hydrangea blossoms hung heavy on the branches of carefully pruned trees, orchids swayed in hanging baskets from the veranda roof while hibiscus and chrysanthemums and countless others he couldn’t hope to name flooded the small yard in so many colours he almost wished for a pair of sunglasses. So, minus the flashing, perhaps the neon sign analogy hadn’t been that far off.  
  
Lila put on a burst of speed, and Prompto willingly released her hand as she sprinted to the front gate, giggling the entire way. He watched as she pulled a latch he wouldn’t have even noticed, the dark metal gate swinging open wide and she was quick to dart through and up to eagerly bang a large, round knocker against the thick wood of the front door.  
  
“So, this is a centaur house huh?” He said, idly filling the silence left by Lila’s absence.  
  
“Hmm?” Prompto said, eyes glazed when he tilted his head to look at him, before he blinked back into the present with a small jolt, “oh yeah! The Cervius’s came over from Niflheim years ago, so when they had their house built they got it made like it is over there, guess you wouldn’t have seen one before though, huh bud?”  
  
“No,” he said faintly. He felt Prompto flick his tail teasingly against his back, a habit he usually did to say whoever was on his back was thinking too hard.  
  
“It’s not that different on the inside, just wider mostly, and uh, most things are lower to the ground.”  
  
“Kinda the opposite of what you’d expect.”  
  
“Well,” Prompto said, catching the gate before it could swing closed again, “not everything’s low of course, most cupboards and shelves would probably be out of your reach actually.”  
  
“So like, are there actual centaur beds and stuff? What would that even look li-”  
  
“Prompto,” a sharp, accented voice cut him off and had both of them instantly shooting to attention. Noctis turned his head to the front doors, now both flung open, and felt himself utterly caught off guard by the aged woman now occupying where they had once been. Lila had disappeared entirely, likely shooting off into the house to dump her things.  
  
The flowery button up blouse she wore was completely at odds with the stern set of her wizened features, sharp eyebrows set above dark, clever eyes that stared right back into his with no hesitance whatsoever. Noctis felt a familiar tightness spring lock up every joint of his spine, a cold familiarity he knew all too well in a gaze that clever, that educated. It was the same he saw in the eyes of nobles, gazes that followed him like a predator watching prey, far too intelligent, far too interested, and holding no care for him whatsoever.  
  
“Afternoon Marissa,” Prompto greeted, a tiny, anxious note to his voice. It did nothing to lessen the gross feeling clawing insistently at the back of his mind, yet despite that, he couldn’t deny that the elder centaur easily looked the part of someone highborn. At least, he assumed for a centaur.  
  
Marissa, simply put, was the most elegantly built centaur he had ever seen, tall and lean with long, runner’s legs. Prompto had taken the liberty of explaining the colloquial terms to him after he had heard it and the word ‘puller’ thrown around a couple of times in conversation, and he had steadily been getting a taste for them. It at least felt easier than referring only to coat colours, and speaking of, the lady in the doorway had to have the most beautifully coloured fur he had ever seen, easily. Sorry Prompto, but compared to this his splotchy butt wasn’t even in the same league. Her coat was the colour of a storm, greys and whites and blacks and even the vaguest hint of blue swirled in flurries and dapples across her flanks, darker on the top and fading across her undersides, like a thunderhead lit up from within by a great fork of lightning. The colouring itself was striking, like nothing he had seen on a centaur before, but beyond that her coat was also immaculate. Carefully groomed and so smooth it almost looked as though she were covered in gleaming velvet. A shrewd flick of her tail revealed a seamless gradient from dark, dusky grey to pure, snow white at the tips, draped almost all the way to the floor.  
  
“Did you hear me?”  
  
Gods, Lila and Prompto had been right, the similarities in accents between her and Ignis was uncanny.  
  
“Noct?” Prompto whispered, nudging him lightly with an elbow.  
  
“Oh, uh, sorry,” he said quickly, mentally slapping himself for phasing out so easily, “um, what was that?”  
  
Prompto shot him a concerned look over his shoulder but his eyes were locked on the elder centaur’s, waiting for her expression to shift into a sneer at his fuck up, or a cunning smile at his apparent naivety, or worst of all, the bright laughter that almost masked the greed that spilled from their lips. He was very suddenly aware that neither Ignis nor Gladio were here to swoop in and save him right now.  
  
Marissa’s lip curled up on one side and her slim eyebrows bobbed. Here it comes.  
  
“Good gods, you two are one and the same, always off somewhere else,” she said with a wave of a hand, a small collection of bangles jingling with the movement, “I said, you must be Noctis, yes?”  
  
He forced the cold retort he had already been preparing back down his throat, almost choking on it. The niggling feeling in the back of his mind paused, just as bemused as the rest of him.  
  
“Yes,” he said simply, not really wanting to confirm or deny anything on instinct. It happened sometimes, occasionally people didn’t realise-  
  
“A pleasure to meet you finally, I am Marissa, Lila’s mother, or one of them at least,” she said, no sign of discomfort or nerves in her posture at all, “Prompto has told us so much about you, although, had I known we would be hosting the Prince of all people I would have cleaned up a little more.”  
  
She finished with a pointed stare at the blonde.  
  
Ah, well, that was that then. He couldn’t even be mad at Prompto for telling them, it wasn’t like it was much of a secret.  
  
“We won’t keep you long,” Prompto said quickly, hands flailing in front of him, freezing and beginning another aborted gesture at the sharply arched eyebrow that earned, “I mean, uh, we can if you… if you needed something?”  
  
“Yes, I do, you will not be getting out of this young man.”  
  
Prompto swallowed tightly and Noct felt his shoulders set in a straight line. For a few, painful moments there was nothing but the woman’s hard, searching stare, set on Prompto but Noct felt the periphery gnawing at him just a fiercely. Finally, the silence broke with her damning words.  
  
“How much junk did you feed my daughter this time?”  
  
Prompto made a low whimpering sound in his throat, his back legs doing that skittering dance they did when he was nervous, jostling him lightly on his back.  
  
“Uh, n-not as much as last time?” He tried. Marissa’s eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.  
  
“Come inside.” It wasn’t a question.  
  
“Ah- um, actually, we were, um-”  
  
“Do you have anywhere to be?” Marissa said with sharply narrowed eyes.  
  
“W-well, not desperately but-”  
  
“Then I would have words, come in for some tea, both of you,” with that she turned and disappeared back into the house with a flick of her tail, certain in the knowledge that no further argument would come. The stunned silence she left in her wake might have been thick enough to cut with a knife. Prompto shuffled his hooves awkwardly, opening and closing his mouth once, twice, and going for a third before a sharp giggle made him jump.  
  
“There’s no escape,” Lila said, having reappeared as though summoned by the smell of fear to grin like a goblin in the doorway.  
  
“Uh,” Noct said intelligently, already making to slide from his back, “I can just wait outside if you-”  
  
“If I leave the Prince of Lucis outside she can and will kill me instantly,” Prompto hissed, grabbing his legs in a death grip, “she invited us both.”  
  
“Yeah but-”  
  
“Come on,” Lila interrupted, twirling around with a flick of her fuzzy foal tail, “Ada’s made cake!”  
  
Prompto shuffled on his hooves, hesitating still. Noctis blinked. Watching the young girl as she disappeared after her mother, then shrugged.  
  
“I’m in if there’s gonna be cake.”  
  
Prompto snorted, relinquishing his hold on his legs.  
  
“Should’ve figured, fine but we can’t tell Iggy.”  
  
“Agreed.”  
  
With that, Prompto finally moved forward, striding up through the front door and into the house proper, pausing only to push the doors closed behind him with each back leg.  
  
“She probably just wants to have a quick catch up with me, it’s been a couple weeks, sorry man this shouldn’t take long.”  
  
Noctis shrugged, realising too late that the blonde wasn’t facing him to see it, too busy taking in the architecture around him and spoke up instead.  
  
“Like I said, cake.”  
  
Prompto snickered and Noct took the opportunity to really examine the house interior. It wasn’t exactly odd, nor alien, it was all just… off. Just slightly too out of proportion to be the normal, human standard.  
  
The first thing that struck him was just how much larger the interior was than he had been expecting, the hallways wider, the roof higher. The floors were entirely wood, not the polished, shining kind he found in parts of the Citadel, these were smooth, yet worn, covered in the scuff marks he knew could only come from hooves. The front hall was devoid of furniture, no dressers or tables, instead the walls were lined with a continuous shelf that ran along the wall, higher than the average reach of a human, and was lined with knick knacks and miniature statues of beasts and framed photos of anything and everything. Some of them he recognised as Prompto’s distinct style.  
  
Prompto turned through another double door to his left, the hall plenty wide enough for him to turn with ease and not cluttered with breakable furniture like his own, he found the same basic layout in the sitting room. Though the room was wide enough to allow for scattered dressers here and there, most of the space was open. Thick, colourful rugs were strewn haphazardly about the floor, well trodden yet still springy, like shag, and meticulously clean. The oddest thing was the lounges though. They were almost completely flat for the most part, practically built into the floor and backless, reduced to nothing but a thick, outdoors-style cushion that led up to a single arm that arched up in a steep curve and littered with pillows. He was reminded of a pool chair, only without legs to prop it up. There were four of them, two on either side of a dark wood coffee table, placed so their single arms (upper body rests he idly realised) were back to back, so if a centaur was occupying one beside the other they would be all but facing one another.  
  
He had never even considered centaurs having purpose designed chairs, and he could have slapped himself.  
  
“So, you grace us with your presence at last.”  
  
Noctis jumped at the same time Prompto did, the twitch in his hide traveling up through his legs like an electric current.  
  
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Ma'am-”the title was hastily added as an afterthought.  
  
Marissa quirked a perfectly groomed eyebrow at him, a tiny smile playing over her lips. She had already settled in the left-most lounge opposite the coffee table, her dappled coat gleaming in the warm, midday sun streaming from the tall windows, opened so the light breeze fluttered the wispy curtains. Her polished hooves shone, back legs crossed at the ankle in a manner far too similar to the women in their elegant gowns at the Citadel functions he was forced to attend.  
  
“You took Lila on such short notice, so I suppose all is forgiven,” she said, before gesturing to the seats opposite her, “sit down sit down, Noctis I do hope you don’t mind being so close to the ground but there should be plenty of pillows you can use.”  
  
“Oh uh,” Noctis said awkwardly, noting with some embarrassment he hadn’t even slid off of Prompto’s back yet, and his friend couldn’t really lay down with him still on board, “that’s fine I don’t-”  
  
“I think we have some human chairs in the store room, love!” A cheerful voice called from what he assumed was the kitchen, where the scent of baking cake and what could only be fresh bread was wafting from, making his stomach growl.  
  
“Do we?” Marissa called back, turning her gaze to another wide door behind her, further along the hall they had just come out of, “would you be a dear and grab one for me?”  
  
“It’s really fine,” Noctis said quickly, hurriedly dismounting from Prompto’s back and nearly tilting too far in the process, managing to save it before he face planted straight into the rug below, “really, I uh, I like pillows and stuff, so…”  
  
Prompto snorted, not missing his almost stumble and Noct only just stopped himself from slapping his flank. Under Marissa’s sharp, scrutinizing gaze, he found himself instinctively falling into some of his Citadel behaviour, though he wasn’t entirely sure why.  
  
“It’s true,” Prompto provided when that clever gaze turned on him, “you should see how many pillows he’s got, it’s like a dragon hoard.”  
  
Noctis pursed his lips at that. It was not a hoard…  
  
“Mood,” Marissa said primly. Noctis strained not to let his jaw drop.  
  
“Did I get it right that time?” She said, taking no notice of his blindsided look, “that’s how you and Lila say it right?”  
  
“That was perfect Marissa,” Prompto squeaked out, jerking into motion as he brushed past him to flop down in the nearest lounge, choking on giggles the whole way.  
  
“Laughing at me to my face you horrid young man,” Marissa grumbled, lifting an ornate teacup to her lips, but there was nothing but amusement in her voice, making it very obvious that she wasn’t mad in the least. The glimmer of laughter in her eyes said it was all probably deliberate, and he dimly realised the atmosphere of the room was nowhere near as awkward as it had felt outside. Carefully, he picked his way over the rug to slide down on to the lounge beside his friend’s, leaning his back against the armrest (torso-rest? That didn’t sound right) and picking up one of the colourful, tasseled pillows, tracing the intricate patterns with his eyes. He felt Prompto shift so his arm was pressed against the back of his head, a grounding touch he didn’t need to voice his gratitude for.  
  
“Don’t get any ideas Noct,” Prompto said, gently jostling him, “no way I’m gonna help you smuggle cushions from Marissa ‘The Annihilator’ Cervius.”  
  
“Oh! I like that one, write it down for me,” Marissa said, a finger raising to eagerly emphasize it as the other hand returned her now empty cup to its saucer on the tabletop.  
  
Noctis rolled his eyes, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. “I wouldn’t dare.”  
  
“There’s a good lad,” she said approvingly, and he felt his ears flush.  
  
“Now then,” Marissa said, her human half straightening against her chair and her hands steepling, the one elbow leant atop the arm giving her a lopsided stance that was somehow still completely no nonsense, “you will answer my question properly, how much junk did you let Lila have this time?”  
  
“I swear it wasn’t that much! She had a little bit of ice-cream earlier and some chocolate before we left but only so she’d pack up her stuff quick-”  
  
“Good gods does she have you all sorted out,” Marissa said with a laugh that tinkled like bells, “that’s my girl.”  
  
“Hey,” Prompto whined and Noctis couldn’t help a laugh at his friends expense.  
  
“Honestly Prompto, you’re supposed to be the one in charge of her,” Marissa continued, tutting and shaking her head.  
  
“Lila knows all my weaknesses though,” Prompto mumbled, slumping his head against Noct’s, “she’s a menace, just like her mum.”  
  
“Well, that’s my girl,” Marissa repeated, pride in her eyes.  
  
“Where did she go by the way?” Noct piped up, anxious that the conversation would turn on him.  
  
“Well that too can be tied into how utterly whipped our dear Prompto is, can’t it?” Marissa said without missing a beat.  
  
“Come on,” Prompto groaned, ignoring the smirk his best friend was now shamelessly directing at him.  
  
“You see, Prompto was also supposed to ensure Lila did at least some of her homework while he was watching her, would you care to know how much she actually did?”  
  
“None?” Noctis supplied, arching an eyebrow.  
  
“Very good, you’ve earned a cookie, unlike Prompto.”  
  
“Nice.”  
  
“Noct, how could you?” Prompto said in mock betrayal, “you’re supposed to have my back.”  
  
Noctis shrugged.  
  
“Hey, I don’t do the babysitting.”  
  
“You’re the one that needs the babysitting.”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“No fighting boys, or else no cake,” Marissa cut in, an amused smile accentuating the laugh lines across her face, “anyway, to answer your question, Lila is doing the homework she coerced Prompto into forgetting all day.”  
  
“Kinda like Ignis is gonna do with you later,” Prompto said cheerfully. Noctis shot him a baleful look.  
  
“Perhaps we should contact them to babysit in future,” Marissa mused, winking when both turned looks of real concern on her.  
  
“He’s on full time as Royal Retainer, sorry,” Noctis said, a bit too quickly if the raised brows from Prompto was anything to go off of.  
  
“Hmm, sounds like my wife.”  
  
If Noct had received his promised tea already he might have done a spit take with it. He still made the strangled sound that would have accompanied it, but it was all but buried beneath the sharp bark of laughter that shot from Prompto’s throat.  
  
“Speaking of, what on Eos is she doing?” Marissa continued, feigning indifference to the turmoil she had struck in her guests. The tiny, sideways smile gave her away.  
  
“Sorry to keep you waiting dears!” The voice from the kitchen clopped into view through the open wall of the hallway, revealing another centaur lady he guessed was around the same age as Marissa, hefting a giant tray laden with two teapots dressed in knitted tea-cozies and plates stacked high with sweets. Ada was noticeably shorter than the graceful Marissa and portly in a way that made her look nothing but warm and soft, the wide smile and the laugh lines on her timeworn face only completing the image. Unlike Marissa, her coat was not what he would have called beautiful or glowing, only a simple, liver chestnut with a single white sock on her left foreleg and a tail darker than her hide. Yet her fur was smooth and meticulously kept, and with the gentle flush that seemed set permanently on her cheeks and her dark, kind eyes, she felt the polar opposite of her initially intimidating partner.  
  
“Had to wait until the cake had cooled off enough, I hope you like cookies and coffee cake, Noctis dear.”  
  
“Uh, yeah, definitely,” Noctis replied, feeling his ears heat even further when Ada beamed at him like he had just told her she had won the lottery. She carefully bent her upper body down to slide the tray down on to the table, seamlessly setting out cups and saucers at the places of everyone present, laughing loudly when Lila suddenly appeared to snatch up a couple of cookies before bolting back to her room, closely followed by Marissa’s sharp promise of a ‘long trip around the city tomorrow young lady’.  
  
“Thank you so much for watching her again, Prompto,” Ada said cheerily, pouring a fresh cup of floral-scented tea for her partner, “especially on such sort notice, tea or coffee Noctis?”  
  
“Uh, I’m alri-”  
  
“He likes coffee as long as it’s white with at least three sugars,” Prompto cut in, nudging his hair again when he shot him an indignant look out the corner of his eye.  
  
“Oh a sweet tooth have we dear?” Ada said with obvious delight, seamlessly beginning to stir up a cup for him exactly how he liked it, “you’ll fit right in here.”  
  
“And nothing leaves these walls so go wild dude,” Prompto added, snickering at the flush persistently sticking to his ears and cheeks, “Ada takes it as a compliment.”  
  
“Absolutely sweetie.”  
  
“See?”  
  
Noctis huffed, watching carefully as the cup was set nicely before him, steam curling in pretty tendrils up from the frothy top. he didn’t really think he would ever be able to fully relax, he wasn’t used to any of this sort of thing, a part of him long-versed in the manipulative ways of people whispering that they had to want something from him, from the Prince of Lucis. But Gods if all of Ada’s warm looks and Marissa’s whip like humour weren’t making it hard. Though he couldn’t say how much of that was thanks to his friend’s presence. Prompto trusted them, and he trusted Prompto, so maybe… maybe this time it would be alright.  
  
“You’d best not be disrespecting my wife’s baking young man,” Marissa said, eyes narrowing playfully. Noctis felt something in him flip, say ‘fuck it’, and decide to play along.  
  
“I dunno,” he said slowly, a tiny smirk pulling at his lips, “I think you might have some tough competition from my Advisor.”  
  
“Oooh yeah,” Prompto piped up, giving him another gentle nudge, “Iggy’s cooking kills me straight dead.”  
  
Marissa scoffed.  
  
“Keep talking like that and I may just have to meet this one.”  
  
“Oh please dear,” Ada said, cheeks flushing, “you needn’t get so defensive, I’d personally love to see what your friend makes.”  
  
“Ignis is insane in the kitchen,” Prompto leapt on the turn in conversation with renewed enthusiam, always eager to compliment the Advisor’s cooking, but likely also pleased to finally not be the one on the end of Marissa’s ire. Even if it was the friendly sort. Noctis tuned out a little as the blonde started listing half the foods Ignis had made them over the last couple of months. He knew his friend was more than a little enamoured with the older boy’s cooking, something he had known pretty much all his life, and so wasn’t that impressed by most days. But Prompto’s constant stream of compliments more than made up for his lack of them, and it wasn’t exactly hard to notice the fond little smiles Ignis always wore whenever he received them.  
  
“-and oh man he makes these like, little tart things from Tenebrae that he says he can never get right but gods they’re amazing and-”  
  
“Oh! Tenebraen sweets! A man after my own heart,” Ada cooed, sliding a steaming cup of rosy tea in front of Prompto before finally pushing herself up to take her own place beside Marissa.  
  
“Surprising indeed,” Marissa agreed, taking the teapot from her partner with a small, fond smile and moving to pour her a cup, “there’s so few in the city who make Tenebraen recipes like we remember them.”  
  
Ada sighed wistfully, nodding her agreement as she folded her legs and ‘flumped’ on to the cushions with far less grace than he imagined Marissa would have, but his mind had snagged on the implications that had slipped right into the conversation.  
  
“I remember our first time in Tenebrae,” Ada said cheerily, stirring her tea with a gentle chime of metal against ceramic, “stumbling after our mothers, I’m sure we looked a sight beside them.”  
  
Marissa rolled her eyes, smiling as she sipped her own drink.  
  
“I could never get the graceful steps no matter how hard mother tried, such clumsy things we were back then.”  
  
“You’re from Tenebrae?” Noctis said in surprise, before he could think better of it. As if the accents didn’t make it obvious. Ada smiled at him kindly.  
  
“We practically grew up there dear, my family have been servants to the Cervius nobles for many many generations you see, so when the house matriarch, Marissa’s mother at the time, spoke of moving there, we went with them of course.”  
  
“You were a noble?” He barked. Marissa’s eyes narrowed, though her lips were pursed in amusement more than insult.  
  
“Why? Do I not look it?”  
  
“Uh, no, that’s not-” Noctis glared daggers at Prompto, who was snickering at him in the corner of his vision. Marissa raised her head proudly.  
  
“I suppose centaur nobility would seem quite different to the human kind, you see a lot of the noble family lines back in both Tenebrae and Niflheim were based on appearances and, unfortunately, breeding.”  
  
Noctis lowered his gaze. “Doesn’t seem so different,” he mumbled.  
  
Marissa’s eyes turned just a hint softer.  
  
“Yes, though I fear our kind took it to a worse extreme than what I’ve seen in Lucis, by which I speak of forced marriages and controlled social circles, all in the name of preserving a noble house’s genetics.”  
  
Prompto’s nose crinkled in disgust, fidgeting with the tassel of a pillow to occupy himself.  
  
“When I was your age, I was not even allowed to speak with common folk.”  
  
Noctis blinked, a sick feeling filling him at the mere notion of being forbidden from seeing Prompto, let alone speaking with him almost every day.  
  
“That bad?”  
  
“And worse,” Marissa said softly, her eyes glazing over as she slipped into thoughts he couldn’t guess, but obviously did not sit well.  
  
Ada shifted a little closer on her lounge, laying a hand gently on her partner’s arm.  
  
“There were a lot of things we did not agree with in the noble circle,” she said, a lilt of something playful entering her voice, “after all, our own marriage was perhaps the largest scandal house Cervius ever saw.”  
  
Marissa outright cackled with glee.  
  
“Imagine my dear mother’s shock when I announced that we were together,” she said with evil delight, swirling her remaining tea around her cup, “oh they wanted to disown me there and then, little did they know that was what I wished. And that’s more or less how we ended up in Lucis.”  
  
“You never told me you got chased out by your own family though?” Prompto said in disbelief. Marissa harrumphed.  
  
“We were not chased out, we left willingly, if a little pressured,” she explained, replacing her empty cup on its saucer with a clean ‘clink’, “we were planning on leaving anyway.”  
  
“We didn’t have much choice,” Ada said sadly.  
  
“Whether my mother accepted it or not, we would be leaving for Lucis, or Accordo had that failed,” Marissa continued impassively, “it did not particularly bother me whether she liked our union or not.”  
  
“You just… left?” Noctis mumbled. Prompto glanced at him.  
  
Both ladies paused, Ada’s brow creasing just enough to be noticeable.  
  
“Well, it wasn’t that simple,” she said gently, “we didn’t just leave for some scandalous love affair.”  
  
Noct actually did snort at that, and Prompto visibly relaxed.  
  
“Unfortunately… there were other things that were more pressing to our departure.”  
  
“I can imagine…” Noctis mumbled, though information on civilian conditions in Niflheim couldn’t be defined with any certainty due to the strict border control, he didn’t imagine they would be anything close to pleasant. It wasn’t hard to imagine a majority of the nation’s people crushed under the heel, or hoof as it were, of a hyper militarized leadership. So little intel had been gleaned from any of the ordinary citizens of Niflheim in recent years… and he would be lying if he said his friendship with a centaur hadn’t been the thing that had caused him to even cast thought to just how the hell the innocents under the Empire were coping. But given how difficult it was to even get close to Niflheim, all but impossible really, current knowledge on goings on within the home continent of the centaur race was abysmally low.  
  
“Come now,” Ada said smoothly, obviously with no small amount of practice, “let’s not dwell on such horrible things, oh, do you remember how beautiful Tenebrae was in the spring? I do so miss the festivals we shared there, the fields of sylleblossoms were always so beautiful.”  
  
Marissa sighed deeply, the tension leaking grudgingly from her sharp shoulders.  
  
“Yes, they were,” she said softly, “the Festival of Flowers was always so much larger than the ones here, it is truly a shame.”  
  
“Oh the ones here are nothing to sneeze at, the community does a wonderful job every year.”  
  
“The Festival of… Flowers?” Noctis said.  
  
Both ladies gazes snapped to him in disbelief, before swiveling to settle on Prompto, who seized up instantly, one bemused the other narrowed in icy suspicion.  
  
“Prompto sweetie,” Marissa said with a dangerous air, “I’m sure you’ve told your friends about centaur culture, have you not?”  
  
“Uh, s-some?”  
  
“For shame,” Marissa barked, while Ada shot the blonde a sympathetic smile, the look in her eyes almost apologetic.  
  
“You come from a proud people with an incredible culture and history young man, even if tarnished by recent events, you should take pride in it.”  
  
“Yes Marissa,” Prompto mumbled, worrying his lip and staring miserably at the carpet.  
  
After another long moment of harsh staring, she seemed to take pity on him, the hard lines of stern wrinkles softening back to gentle curves once more.  
  
“Well, no time like the present then,” she said pointedly. Prompto blinked.  
  
“Oh, oh right, uh-”  
  
Marissa sighed hopelessly while Ada failed to hide a laugh into the rim of her teacup. Noctis twisted with an amused smirk to meet his friend’s flustered gaze, noting with little surprise that his cheeks had flushed bright pink. Prompto blushed so easily, it still amused him to no end.  
  
“It’s like, the biggest thing centaur’s celebrate each year,” Prompto fumbled on, obviously straining not to make eye contact with the elder centaur, “it’s supposed to like, welcome the coming of spring… or something…”  
  
Marissa gave a loud sigh.  
  
“Um, there’s lots of flowers?”  
  
“We’ve failed him.”  
  
“Oh dear…”  
  
“I uh, I’ve never really gone to one,” Prompto admitted, sheepishly rubbing his arm.  
  
“We’ve failed him, Ada!” Marissa wailed theatrically, waving her half-eaten biscuit in the air.  
  
“I think that sounds kind of familiar,” Noctis tried, taking pity on the blonde, now completely red in the face.  
  
Marissa huffed, shooting him a small, knowing look that said she saw exactly how he was trying to cover for him. He couldn’t be certain, but he almost thought there was something approving in the glance.  
  
“The Festival of Flowers is far more than a simple celebration of spring,” she began, her accent instantly reminding him of one of Ignis’ lectures in an uncanny way, “it’s a time for all of us to come together and give thanks for the year that has passed, and to share our blessings for the coming one.”  
  
“So, it’s a centaur celebration entirely?” Noctis said, genuinely curious, “are humans allowed to attend.”  
  
“Of course dear!” Ada said, looking mildly baffled at the notion, “the celebration’s for everyone, even my memories of ones we attended back in Tenebrae and Niflheim were mixed.”  
  
“Huh, I can’t believe I haven’t heard more about it before now.”  
  
“Well, perhaps if some people bothered to talk about these things,” Marissa said, making no small show of glowering at Prompto, though there was no real malice in her gaze.  
  
“Sorry Marissa,” Prompto offered, scratching the back of his neck, “just… never really went to most of those things y’know? Kinda still learning about it all myself.”  
  
“How come you never went?” Noct said, one eyebrow quirking in confusion, “would think you’d be all over stuff like that, all the photo opportunities and stuff.”  
  
Prompto tensed up instantly, eyes darting away to the other side of the room in the same moment both elder centaurs gazes softened in sympathy.  
  
“I just uh, never really had anyone to go with I guess,” he mumbled, beginning to fidget with the pillow again, “it’s not all that fun alone.”  
  
Noctis knew the whole thing had something to do with Prompto’s often absent parents, but the whole issue seemed far more strained than he had ever alluded to before, something that was seemingly brought up often between his friend and the two women. Or at least by Marissa, he thought.  
  
“You can always come with us,” Ada said.  
  
“Yes, we only invite you every year,” Marissa added flatly. Prompto winced.  
  
“Yeah, sorry, you know, real busy that time of the year.”  
  
“On your school holidays?”  
  
“…working and stuff.”  
  
“It’s one day, Prompto.”  
  
Prompto opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed, shoulders slumping.  
  
“Alright I got nothing, I just don’t go, I don’t have a reason.”  
  
“Finally,” Marissa huffed, “it’s a start.”  
  
“I’ll go with you, if it’s that important you go with someone,” Noct broke in, keeping his tone carefully bored, in case it turned out he wasn’t really welcome to what was apparently a very important time of the year for centaurs. And clearly a battle of wills that had been waged between his stubbornly self-sufficient best friend and one indomitable old lady.  
  
“Wait, really?” Prompto said, head snapping around to pin him with a startled look, “would you like, even be allowed to dude?”  
  
Noctis shrugged, something stubborn and determined settling in the back of his mind, crossing its arms and clearly saying ‘if I’m not I‘ll damn well make it so I am’.  
  
“I go to school and everything don’t I?”  
  
“Huh, I guess so-” he cast a bashful look down to his forelegs, “-well… I’d go if you were too.”  
  
“Is that really all it took?” Marissa said under her breath, turning to stare exhaustedly at her partner, “as the kids say, are you for real?”  
  
“I don’t think the kids say that dear,” Ada replied, patting her arm comfortingly. Marissa rolled her eyes, though a smile creased the corners of her eyes.  
  
“Well, if you intend on going with your friends, I expect you to have them fully knowledgeable for what is expected of them on the day.”  
  
“Expected?” Noctis said, baffled.  
  
“Well,” Ada began, tapping languidly at her empty cup, the soft chime of the ceramic an even, tuneless melody in the warm, cozy living room, “the festival is tied very heavily with our culture, I won’t bore you with a lecture-”  
  
“Why not?” Marissa muttered.  
  
“-but, as the name would suggest, flowers are very important to the day, if you attend you should know that you will be covered in them by the end of the day.”  
  
“Is that all?” Noctis said, turning to Prompto, “sounds like we gotta drag Gladio along for it too then.”  
  
Prompto snorted, hand shooting to cover it up and failing. Ada merely tilted her head in bemusement while Marissa arched a perfectly shaped eyebrow.  
  
“His full name is Gladiolus,” Prompto provided.  
  
“Oh wow,” Ada said.  
  
“Couldn’t have planned that better if we tried,” Marissa added.  
  
“So, when exactly does the celebration happen?”  
  
“It actually has no real set date,” Ada replied, finally setting down her teacup, “it takes place in the season of spring of course, but it’s never right at the beginning of the seasonal turn, it has to be held when spring has already well taken hold.”  
  
“Otherwise the runners wouldn’t be able to get nearly enough flowers for everyone,” Marissa finished, pouring herself a fresh cup of tea before moving to refill her partner’s cup. Noctis remembered all at once that he had his own drink cooling on the table that he hadn’t touched yet, and he hurriedly took a long sip of it. It was startlingly good, especially considering his picky taste in coffee. Prompto knew him too well.  
  
“What are the flowers used for?”  
  
“They’re for everyone who attends dear,” Ada replied, patting Marissa’s wrinkled hand in thanks, “not all choose to participate of course, but most centaurs do.”  
  
“I think I remember this one,” Prompto piped up, visibly brightening, “in the old days they used to have harvest competitions, I think, it helped share the work of the harvest while like, apparently blessing you for the coming year?”  
  
“Yes! Very good Prompto.”  
  
“Oh how shocking,” Marissa said deadpan, “you do in fact know some things about your culture.”  
  
Prompto flushed.  
  
“The tradition changed quite a bit since then of course,” Ada continued smoothly, “yes, in those days the idea was to help harvest a piece of every crop in the region to encourage good fortune for the coming year, and for protection when the hard months of winter rolled in.”  
  
“Oh,” Prompto and Noctis said in unison, the latter barely resisting the urge to do their usual and keep it going until one of them ran out of breath. Usually him. Well, what chance did he really have against a guy with two sets of lungs?  
  
“But in larger towns and cities, that obviously wasn’t really an option,” Marissa picked up, “so it instead became a sort of game within the festivities, nowadays you’re given a sash when you enter and you’re supposed to gather a flower from every traveling vendor at the festival.”  
  
“Huh, that’s actually pretty neat,” Noctis said, genuinely meaning it.  
  
“I didn’t even know that,” Prompto mumbled.  
  
The conversation spun on easily from there, and Noctis felt himself relax further and further, all but melting into the surprisingly comfortable lounge as he listened to the two ladies talk more about the festival, promising to let them both know when the date for this year’s was released. They asked about how their schooling was going, listening intently when he admitted it was all getting pretty stressful now, and Ada recommended him a blend of tea that was good for calming anxiety. Prompto even managed to coerce Marissa to recount a story from their youth in Tenebrae where she, one of her brothers and Ada had almost managed to ruin a ball by accidentally setting a tablecloth on fire. The fallout with Momma Cervius had apparently been legendary.  
  
“Oh my gods,” Prompto choked out between his breathless laughter, “I can’t believe you did that.”  
  
“Yes,” Ada said, smiling so wide it looked painful and her eyes sparkling with tears of mirth, “it was-”  
  
She froze up, eyes going wide, before sniffing pointedly. Noctis felt his shoulders tense warily, and he sniffed too. The air was still heavy with the smell of baking bread. Wait-  
  
“I forgot about the bread!” Ada cried in horror, shooting upwards, getting to her feet far more smoothly than he would have expected and clattering through to the kitchen, her lilting voice echoing through the halls as she called out, “sorry for the shock, Prompto dear would you mind giving me a hand clearing some space while I get these out the oven, I’m afraid I didn’t really plan ahead here.”  
  
“Sure thing Ada,” he called back, using a hand against the top of Noct’s head to push himself up, “back in a sec, dude.”  
  
“Giddy up,” Noct said on instinct.  
  
“Yeehaw,” Prompto shot right back.  
  
They both seemed to realise as one that they had said that in front of a dignified old lady.  
  
“That clearly means something different than I remember,” Marissa mumbled, nonchalantly going for her teacup again. Prompto made a choking noise and beat a very hasty retreat, leaving Noctis alone with the elderly centaur, a faint blush burning over his cheeks.  
  
Marissa watched with an amused smile until his blonde tail disappeared through the doorway, before turning her eyes thoughtfully back on him. After a long moment, she spoke with a subtle gentleness that hadn’t been in her voice at all previously, like she was afraid he would spook.  
  
“You make him very happy you know.”  
  
“I could say the same back,” the words left his lips before he could even think it through, and he felt his cheeks heat immediately. He wouldn’t take them back though. It seemed to be the right answer because the elderly centaur’s smile twitched a fraction higher, laugh lines crinkling the corners of her sharp old eyes.  
  
“I remember that first week you both became friends, I’d never seen Prompto so happy, he was bouncing off the walls even more than Lila.”  
  
Noctis could picture it. He hadn’t exactly been bouncing around his apartment, but he recalled with sudden vividness a lightness that had settled itself in his chest all the rest of that evening after he and Prompto had finally parted from their first ‘hang out’ at the arcade. Dimly, he realised he wasn’t even sure if it had actually left or if he had simply grown used to the airy warmth in his breast. He didn’t care to find out, as long as it stayed.  
  
“I’m happy for him, for you both, from what I’ve heard you both seemed in need of a friend.”  
  
“More than he knows,” he mumbled, not thinking she would catch it. From the way Marissa’s eyes turned sad he knew she had.  
  
“A sentiment I recall with unfortunate clarity,” she replied softly. Noctis wondered if every noble house was inherently doomed to the same misfortunes, wanting nothing for wealth or fame yet stagnating in almost everything else it felt.  
  
“But I suppose it is reassuring then that we both found people to make us smile-” Marissa’s gaze drifted fondly towards the kitchen, where the sounds of both laughter and muffled conversation drifted- “I don’t know what I would have done without Ada beside me all these years.”  
  
The was something bothering Noctis, had been bothering him since their conversation had began, yet he didn’t even know if he wanted an answer. But he knew the ugly feeling slithering in his chest wouldn’t go away until he had an answer.  
  
“You were in Tenebrae most of your lives, did you ever meet Lady Lunafreya?”  
  
Marissa’s eyes darted back to him, not aggressive, more searching, as though she wasn’t sure whether to answer. She dusted invisible dirt from the shiny fur of her hindquarter’s shoulder, clearing her throat softly.  
  
“Only briefly,” she said finally, “she was yet very young when we left for Lucis, such a dear young girl, we all but grew up around her mother though, the amount of high class events I was dragged to.”  
  
She fell silent for a long moment, the muffled giggles of the two in the other room drifting in the air like the faint scent of something pleasant in winter.  
  
“We were heartbroken when the news came.”  
  
Noctis nodded, he felt himself do it. He didn’t feel anything else aside from a numbness, spreading from the back of his mind. He wasn’t looking up at Marissa, so he couldn’t see how her expression had twisted, the deep sadness that entered her eyes, yet there was a vulnerability he would never have assumed could exist in the indomitable woman when she spoke softly again.  
  
“I have heard rumours, of course, people say Luna still tries to send messages to Lucis.”  
  
Noctis didn’t say a word.  
  
“I’d like to think it true,” Marissa said softly, and when he risked a glance upwards he found her staring off into nothing, “it would be just like her, I’d be rather disappointed if she didn’t honestly.”  
  
“I wouldn’t know,” he said, voice the level monotone he only ever donned when playing his role as the Prince. Marissa turned her head back to him, but her eyes didn’t focus.  
  
“Your father is kind to keep you apart from it,” she murmured, so softly he almost didn’t hear it, “kinder than most.”  
  
Noctis had barely opened his mouth to reply before Ada and Prompto were returning loudly to the living room, all wide smiles and sunshine. The tension dissipated like mist in the light of day, the cloud of sadness over Marissa’s eyes fading as she turned to smile up at them. He snatched the distraction feverishly, shoving another biscuit into his mouth and hunkering down into the cushions.  
  
“The bread survived!” Prompto crowed.  
  
“The city is saved,” Noctis said around his mouthful.  
  
“Well, dinner is at least,” Ada said merrily, returning to her seat with a content sigh. Prompto puttered back around behind him, pausing at his side long enough for suspicion to set in, but ultimately not reacting fast enough to avoid the hand that smacked roughly into his hair with an accompanying fart noise.  
  
“Dude,” Noct deadpanned. Prompto just laughed at him, ruffling up his hair before moving to retake his seat. He froze before he could get even halfway down however.  
  
“Wait, Noct what time was Iggy gonna pick you up?”  
  
Noctis cocked his head, confused.  
  
“Uh, like, five fifteen I think he said.”  
  
“Dude! That’s like, just over half an hour away!”  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
“It’s four thirty-eight man, we gotta get to the diner before Iggy beats us there,” Prompto said, plucking up his teacup and sculling the last of his drink. Marissa wrinkled her nose up at him.  
  
“Crap,” Noct muttered, copying and bolting down the last of his own drink. He wouldn’t say it was treason to look so disappointed in your Crown Prince, but Marissa clearly couldn’t care less because the look she turned on him made shame crawl up and sit on his shoulders. He slowed his gulps to a more sedate, yet still hurried pace. Marissa looked marginally less affronted.  
  
“Oh dear, have we kept you here that long?” Ada said, a hand shooting over her mouth as she looked up to check the time on a giant grandfather clock, “oh my it’s been an hour already, give me just a moment I’ll pack up some cookies and cake for you both!”  
  
“You don’t have to-” Noctis started, flushing at the generosity as he let Prompto yank him back to his feet, shifting his weight from side to side to get feeling back into his legs, back twinging only slightly from the stretch.  
  
“You won’t stop her dude,” Prompto said with a chuckle, watching after her as she shot up again, grabbing the plates of sweets and disappearing into the kitchen once more.  
  
“Hmm, honestly you’d be doing us a favour,” Marissa said, finally unfolding her long, dusky legs and joining those standing, “if you don’t take them Lila will have them all.”  
  
“Well, I guess we can’t have that,” Noctis relented, a small smile tugging at his lips. Prompto patted him lightly on the shoulder.  
  
“You got everything?”  
  
Noctis felt over the pockets of his jacket, happy to find his phone and wallet exactly where he left them. He pulled the phone out and checked it on habit, his jaw tightening when he saw a couple of missed texts from Ignis, asking if he and Prompto had got to the diner alright and he knew it wouldn’t be long until he started calling too. He didn’t even remember turning his phone on silent.  
  
“Yeah, Iggy’s already on to us,” he mumbled, typing out a quick response before the Crownsguard themselves came searching for him. Prompto hissed through his teeth.  
  
“Oof, we’ll have to run for it then.”  
  
“We can still make it before he gets there,” Noct said quickly, moving to climb back on to his back but catching himself before he could get too far. He knew Prompto didn’t mind, but he didn’t really think it would look good in front of a once-noble centaur lady.  
  
“Had I known you both had places to be I would not have kept you so long,” Marissa said, her graceful strides giving the impression that she was almost gliding across the floor as she quietly gathered the used cups and saucers on to the tray Ada had brought them on and whisked them away into the kitchen.  
  
“Lila! Come say goodbye to Prompto and Noctis,” she called as she left.  
  
“Ah, hold on I’ll help you clean up!” Prompto said with a start, jerkily beginning to head for the kitchen as well. Noctis jumped from the sudden movement and began to follow on instinct.  
  
“There is no way this kitchen will take three centaurs at once!”  
  
He choked on the laugh that launched up his throat. Prompto’s face flushed red at a rate that would have been worrying if he didn’t know he was just like that. He could faintly hear Ada giggling, either at her partner’s words or at their expense he had no idea.  
  
“No need sweetie! We have a dishwasher for a reason.”  
  
It didn’t take long for Ada to finish packing up the sweets and return to the living room toting two bundles in brown paper lunch bags, their tops perfectly folded down and each sealed with a glittery star sticker. She pressed the one with the crystalline blue one into his hands.  
  
“It was a pleasure finally meeting you, Noct,” she said merrily, and her smile somehow gave Prompto’s a run for his money with how warm it was. That weird fuzzy feeling was immediately filling his chest again.  
  
“You too,” he returned, “and thanks.”  
  
“My pleasure,” Ada beamed, before turning her eyes back to Prompto, “and are you sure you’re still ok to take Lila again next week? I know you’re terribly busy with school and work right now.”  
  
“It’s fine, she’s no hassle-”  
  
“Lila! I said come out and say goodbye!” Marissa howled, tone so no-nonsense it made all three of them jolt on sheer instinct.  
  
The sound of a door being thrown open and the staccato beat of hooves on wood filled the room a second before the blur of charcoal grey and brown that was Lila burst into the room. She galloped straight across the room and reared up to slam her spidery forelegs against Prompto’s forelegs, her arms wrapping around his human waist in a tight hug and making a soft ‘oof’ fall from his lips. He smiled after a moment and bopped her gently on the head.  
  
“Thanks for letting me eat ice-cream for lunch Prom,” Lila said as loudly as possible. Prompto’s eyes went wide with horror while Lila slipped back to the ground, giggling like a gremlin as she darted to hide behind Noctis.  
  
“You-!”  
  
“You let her eat what for lunch?!”  
  
Ada weakly stifled her laughter behind a hand, gently patting the flank of the blonde’s hindquarters to usher him towards the entry hallway.  
  
“Quick, quick, make your escape.”  
  
“I owe you my life Ada,” Prompto hissed, all too happily following her instruction and beating a hasty retreat which Noct was quick to mirror, “come on dude, if Marissa doesn’t kill me then Iggy will if we’re late.”  
  
“No, it’s me he’ll kill, he likes you way too much to do anything to you.”  
  
Prompto’s ears went red.  
  
The sun had dipped lower in the sky than he would have expected when they got outside, the colours of the sky beginning to deepen, blue slowly turning to purples, oranges and golds the closer it got to the horizon. The air was still thick with the perfume of all the heavy blooms that filled the Cervius’s front yard, countless flowers swaying contently in the faint breeze. Prompto sighed, stretching his arms over his head.  
  
“You’d better get on dude,” he said, letting his arms drop, “I reckon I can still beat Iggy there if we pace it, here gimme your doggy bag, I’ll put em both in my bags.”  
  
“I believe in you,” Noct said before following his instruction, passing him the bundle of sweets before hauling himself up and thankfully not embarrassing himself in front of Lila, who was watching curiously from the front door.  
  
“Is he heavy?” she said with a tilt of her head.  
  
“Weighs a ton,” Prompto replied as he zipped his bags back up, snickering when Noctis smacked his side. Lila giggled, squealing when Ada snuck through the front doors and seized her flanks, joined a moment later by Marissa, sweeping up behind her and standing tall with the stance Noct very distinctly recognised could only belong to a noble. Ada released the girl with a loving smile, straightening beside her partner and they were so mismatched yet somehow utterly perfect for each other, it was almost baffling.  
  
“So long dears!” Ada called after them, waving from the wide front door, her round cheeks still warmly flushed from her laughter. Marissa’s sharp shoulders squared beside her, that frightening grace oh so odd beside her shorter, far friendlier looking in every conceivable way, partner.  
  
“And for Astral’s sake, Prompto, next time you ring ahead if you’re bringing a guest! I’ll have the tea ready before you arrive in future.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am,” Prompto said obediently, but Noct could hear the fondness in his voice. He kept his gaze on the carefully pruned flowerbeds, silently hoping the heat he could feel across his cheeks wasn’t obvious. But he was welcome back, they wanted him to come back.  
  
“Oh! Bring that Ignis fellow next time!” Ada added, hands waving excitedly, “I’d love to share recipes with him.”  
  
“I don’t know if we’d survive that,” he replied and Noct huffed at the truth of that. A Marissa and Ignis team up almost sent a shudder of terror curling up his spine.  
  
“Hmm, then you must now,” Marissa said, as though reading their minds.  
  
“Don’t let us keep you any longer though,” Ada said quickly, “clock’s ticking boys.”  
  
“Right!”Prompto yelped, jerking forward and making Noctis grab roughly for a hold on his bag strap, he reached back to pat his leg in apology, “thanks for the tea and everything.”  
  
“Our pleasure,” Ada said with one last wave as they went through the front gate, beginning to usher Lila back inside, “see you next week, Prompto.”  
  
“See you then,” he answered, pushing the gate closed with his back leg, the both of them waving. Prompto began to speed up to a long pace, then up to a light canter just for insurance, until the two women disappeared into the house after their daughter.  
  
For a long couple of moments, they were both silent. The only sound the jingle of the metal zippers on the blonde’s bags, the clop of his hooves on concrete, and the dim sounds of the city. Finally, Prompto cleared his throat.  
  
“Uh, sorry about lunch man, I didn’t expect they’d drag us in for tea and biscuits.”  
  
“It was nice,” Noct said quickly, and he meant it. That soft, fluttery feeling was still lingering in his chest.  
  
“Ah, I’m glad you think so man,” Prompto said, patting his leg again happily, “Marissa can be intimidating but she always means well, and Ada’s just always super nice.”  
  
“They’re quite the pair,” he agreed.  
  
“You don’t know the half of it bud, and Lila just makes them both worse.”  
  
“So, guess we’re going to a festival later this year?”  
  
Prompto chuckled bashfully, raising a hand to drag through his hair.  
  
“You honestly don’t gotta dude, I’ve only really read about it and seen a couple people going to them each year.”  
  
“Well we gotta go now.”  
  
Prompto sighed dramatically, but there was nothing but fondness in it.  
  
“We’ll talk to Iggy about it.”  
  
Noctis hummed his agreement, feeling lazy and content despite the sugary coffee he had just drank, and the cookies on top of that. The afternoon was quiet and calm, Prompto was warm and solid beneath him, softly humming a cheerful tune that made a smile pull at his lips and his eyelids heavy with the urge to nap against him. It was just… so nice.  
  
His phone buzzed in his pocket. It took him longer than he would have liked to pull it out and glance down at the screen.  
  
**Specs (4:59PM):** Care to tell me where exactly you and Prompto are? Since you certainly aren’t at the diner…  
  
Well… shit.  
  
  
  
Noctis barely had to wait a couple of days before the text he was expecting chimed in all its glory across his phone screen.  
  
**Dead Horf (6:37PM):** WHY THE HELL DID YOU GIVE LILA $50?!?!??  
  
**Dead Horf (6:37PM):** MARISSAS GONNA KILL ME SHE’S SPENDING IT ALL ON JUNK FOOD  
  
**his royal BIness (6:38PM):** down payment


End file.
